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'William S. Fletclier, 

The Seaman's Missionary, 




AT SEA AND IN PORT 

/J^^d^ OR 

LIFE AND EXPERIENCE 

^^ OF 

William S. Fletcher 



FOR THIRTY YEARS SEAMAN'S MISSIONARY 
IN PORTLAND, OREGON. 

Compiled from his Journal and other authentic sources 

BY 

H. K. HINKS, D. D. 

with an introduction 
BY 

BISHOP HART, CRANSTON. 



PRICE, $1.00. 



THE J. K. GII.I. COMPANY, 
Portland, Oregon. 



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Press of Matsh Printing Company. Portland. 



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aff£ctt0nat£iij 

tn tije stjeabfast Ijope ttjat tt mtU prnne to ttjent a beacon anb 
a a«tb£ to tlje ^ort of CBnbless ^Jbotb. 

WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 



CONTENTS, 



Page. 
CHAPTER I. 

Birth and Early Life, 11 

CHAPTER II. 
The Changed Life, 22 

CHAPTER HI. 
To a New Field, 40 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Higher Life 57 

CHAPTER V. 
.Janitor of Taylor Street Church, 70 

CHAPTER VI. 
Marriage, 84 

CHAPTER VII. 

Crusaders, 93 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Work Widening, 104 



Page. 
CHAPTER IX. 

Broadening Life. 117 

CHAPTER X. 

Worli Among Seamen 128 

CHAPTER XI. 

On Ship and On Shore 141 

CHAPTER XII. 

Coi-respoudeuee, 154 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Won for God 1G6 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Ship Work, 177 

CHAPTER XY. 

Widening Work 188 

CHAPTER XYI. 

Bethel Worli Reviving, 198 

CHAPTER XYII. 

Sowing and Reaping, 209 

CHAPTER XYIII. 

Grandma Fletcher. 220 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Coming to the End, '. 238 



INTRODUCTION. 

* * * 

T T will be well for those who propose to read 
^ this unpretentious volume to understand at 
once its mission. It is not sent forth as the life- 
story of a man who fancies that he has won a high 
place amongst men. Nor is Br. Fletcher covetous 
of literary recognition or of the rewards that ordi- 
narily attend successful authorship. He is only a 
plain Christian man, who, in what he has to com- 
municate, seeks to honor his Master rather than 
himself. As the representative of the Seaman's 
Friend Society in this city, Mr. Fletcher has been 
not' only an enthusiastic witness for Christ in all 
assemblies, but a tireless missionary among the 
sailors visiting this port. I am sure that in thus 
introducing him I can express no desire more in 
accord with his own design and purpose than that 
the story of his rescue shall be to many a sin- 



S IXTRODrCTORY. 

wrecked sailor a life-line thrown by the hand of a 
saved shipmate. 

Surely other lives than those of ''great men" 
should "remind us (that) we may make our lives 
sublime; and, departing, leave behind us"— ay, 
something better than — "footprmts on the sands 
of time." After all, greatness consists first in 
character. It is Divine possession, only, that 
makes man capable of deeds worth teUing — deeds 
that do not pale in the presence of the motive that 
prompted them. We have heard of savages who 
were prodigies in cunning and courage, but mon- 
strosities as men. Beasts of prey can leave foot- 
prints in the sand. "Greatness,'' as measured in 
the past, often stalked with bloody trail over the 
rights and liberties of man. But we have learned, 
and the world is fast learning the truer type. "The 
Light that lighteth every man" has not been shin- 
ing in vain. The greatest life ever lived was that 
of Jesus the Christ. From pole to pole, and the 
earth around, He is crowned the Ideal INIan, and 
the Saviour of men. Think of it : that two 
should be one. The result of this accepted truth 
upon the world's measurements of men is being 
wrought out slowly, but the revolution is on and 



INTRODUCTORY. 9 

will prove resistless. Henceforth the true man, 
the brave man, the perfect man, — the great man, 
if you will, — is to be the friend and saviour of men; 
not an oppressor, not a plunderer of his kind. So 
let it be. Good-bye to the stars that rose in sel- 
fish ambition, lust and carnage. Welcome the 
new galaxy with Christ as its central sun, and this 
its prophetic legend: 

"THEY THAT TURN MANY TO RIGHT- 
EOUSNESS SHALL SHINE AS THE STARS 
FOREVER AND EVER."— [Daniel xii: 3.] 

No; the author of ''At Sea and in Port," is not 
seeking reputation. But if God shall bless his 
witness to the men ''who go down to the sea in 
ships," many may yet come from all nations and 
call him great, because honored of his Lord. 
Amen. 

EARL CRANSTON. 

Portland, Oregon, March 20, 1898. 



PRELUDE. 

* * * 

A S Compiler and Editor of this Memoir of 
-^^^ Mr. William S. Fletcher, it is suitable that 
I should say that those portions of this book ap- 
pearing as my own are the result of an intimate 
personal acquaintance with Mr. Fletcher and his 
work that has continued for over thirty years. They 
express the personal estimate that so long and so 
intimate a knowledge of the man and his work has 
enabled me to form of them. Pure and incorrupt- 
ible, devout and consecrated, firm, yet kind and 
charitable, his life has been a beacon to voyagers 
over the ocean, and a guide to toilers on the land. 

H. K. HINES. 
Portland, Oregon, April, 1898. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE. 

"I am: How little more I know! 
Whence came I? Whither do I go? 
A centered self, which feels and is; 
A cry between the silences; 
A shadow birth of clouds at strife 
With sunshine on the hills of life; 
A shaft from Nature's quiver cast 
Into the Future from the Past! 
Between the cradle and the shroud. 
A meteors' flight from cloud to cloud." 

— AVhittier. 

T X 7 ILLIAM S. FLETCHER was the dd- 
^ ^ est child of WilUam Fletcher, and was 

born in the parish of Kilmore, near the town of 
Neaugh, County Tipperary, Ireland, on the 29th 
day of May, 1829. His parents were members 
of the Roman Catholic Church, and the boy 
was brought up in its faith. When he was 
seven years of age his father died, and soon after 
his mother married again. The next seven years 



12 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

he spent at home, but at fourteen he left his home, 
or, as he says, "ran away from home," and soon 
reached the port of Limerick, with the intention of 
going to sea. He had but a few pennies in his 
pocket, but, as he had come with the intention of 
going to sea, he soon found his way to the deck 
of a ship and asked the captain if he would take 
him ''and make a sailor of him." The captain 
took him and William remained with him for more 
than two years in the Quebec trade. He finally 
left this ship in Quebec and worked his way to 
New York, and after spending a couple of weeks 
in that great city shipped on one of the "Black 
Ball" line for Liverpool. On the return of the 
vessel to New York it brought over six hundred 
emigrants. 

For some years there was nothing in the Hfe of 
this young man unlike that which enters into the 
life of any young seaman. He made a number of 
voyages out of New York to various European 
ports, and also to South America. In one of his 
European voyages he brought out a younger 
brother with him and apprenticed him to the sail- 
maker's trade in a large Sail and Rigging Loft in 
South Street, in New York. On another voyage 



BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE. 13 

to Dublin he brought his sister with him on his re- 
turn. He had found an aunt in his rambUngs 
about the city of New York, on another occasion, 
and he left his sister with her, and himself entered 
a sailor boarding house kept by one Sam. Smith, 
on Oliver Street. Here he was the subject of one 
of those inhuman practices which disgrace this 
class of business in nearly all ports. Desiring to 
"have a little run ashore" before he went to sea 
again, he paid his landlord for two weeks board 
in advance. In about four days the landlord came 
to him and said: ''Bill, I want you to go in a 
little down-east bark to New Orleans, and then up 
the Mediterranean.'' Bill declined, as he had been 
ashore so short a time, and had paid for his board 
in advance, and he did not wish to go to sea so 
soon again. Little did Mr. Smith care for that. 
He sent one of his "runners" to entice Bill down 
to one of the "chain lockers," and there he was per- 
suaded to take a couple of "drinks," which stupe- 
fied him, and when he came to he found himself 
in a "Whitehall" boat, with his "dunnage," and 
shipped on the bark bound for New Orleans un- 
der another name than his own. One of the men 
engaged by Smith to the captain of the bark had 



14 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

decided not to go, and this method was taken to 
supply his place with Mr. Fletcher. However, he 
left the bark in New Orleans and shipped on board 
a large Philadelphia ship for Liverpool. After the 
cargo of this ship was discharged, six hundred 
emigrants were taken aboard for Philadelphia. In 
running down the channel, when off Holyhead. 
and before all the emigrants had gone below, a 
fearful squall struck the ship and away went the 
three topmasts, the jib-boom and all the "top- 
hamper" of the vessel with them over the side. 
When the wreckage was cleared away, about day- 
light, one of the Belfast steamers picked up the 
ship and towed her to that port. Here Mr. 
Fletcher left her, returned to Liverpool and en- 
tered on another ship bound for New York. 

On arriving in New York he went up to see his 
old "friend" Smith, who was "delighted" to see 
him, and desired immediately to send for his "dun- 
nage," which was yet on the ship. Mr. Fletcher 
declined, reminding Smith in not very gentle 
words of the "dirty trick'' he had played him be- 
fore, and took up his quarters at "Jack Barry's," 
at 42 Cherry street. But a like experience await- 
ed him here, for, in about a week he was again out- 



BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE. 15 

ward bound for San Francisco in the ship Monu- 
ment, of New York. The ship had a stormy pas- 
sage, but arrived in San Francisco about the last 
of March, 1850. 

By this time Mr. Fletcher was becoming wearied 
of the sea, or, if not of the sea itself, then of the 
character of the life that comes to the ordinary 
sailor. And, besides, this was in the very midst 
of the golden flood of prosperity that was rolling- 
over San Francisco, and over all the Pacific coast, 
from the gold mines that had been discovered but 
about two years before. Wages were so high 
and work so abundant that he determined to try 
what he could do on shore. Stopping in San 
Francisco and working along shore for some time, 
the enchanting tales of sudden and fabulous 
wealth to be dug out of the hills and gulches of 
the Sierra Nevadas drew him away from the city, 
and he soon found himself on Feather River, and 
engaged in mining on a bar on the Middle Fork 
of that stream, in the primitive fashion of that 
primitive period. Himself and his companion gen- 
erally took from the dirt from twenty to thirty 
dollars per day. The winter was spent in the 
southern mines, where the same fortune attended 



16 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

his work. Notwithstanding money was so rapid- 
ly and easily made, it was just as rapidly and eas- 
ily spent. Still he wrought industriously on until 
the fall of 1853, when he sold out his interest in 
the mines on Feather River, went down to San 
Francisco and shipped for Liverpool, with the in- 
tention of visiting his mother in Ireland and his sis- 
ter in New York, and then returning to California. 
But though he visited the place of his nativity, 
which he had left when a mere boy, he found that 
his mother had removed to England and so he did 
not see her. 

By this time, it is clearly to be seen, Mr. Fletch- 
er had come to some enlarged views of the pur- 
poses and ends of life. He had seen its hard sides 
and dark shadows. He had visited many of the 
great ports of the world. Sea and land were famil- 
iar to him. His body was hardened by toil, his 
mind expanded by trial, and to a good degree as- 
piration for a better condition of Hfe was awakened 
in his soul. One can easily trace these results 
in the record he made of the events and experi- 
ences of these years. Still there is not, up to this 
time, a single intimation of any religious emotion 
or sentiment coming into his heart or fashioning 



BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE. 17 

his purposes. Still there Avas love in his heart; 
love to his friends, affection for mother and sister, 
and an evident desire to minister to their hap- 
piness. Where there is any susceptibility for love, 
there is yet a place for God in any human heart. 
This has evidently been a growing grace in the 
heart of Mr. Fletcher up to this time. 

Not finding his mother, the young man turned 
back again towards his sister, who was still resid- 
ing in New York. He had got beyond the hard 
need of working his way before the mast, and 
took passage on the steamship "City of Glasgow^" 
with a large company of passengers. This was 
the last trip of that ill-fated vessel. On her next 
voyage she sailed out of her port with a large pas- 
senger list, disappeared in the sky-rimmed loneli- 
ness of the ocean, and was never heard of more. 

Remaining with his sister a few days in New 
York, he returned to California and its golden 
treasures. So prospered was he in his mining op- 
erations that in the fall of 1854, finding that he had 
|2,000 for his summer's work, he resolved to re- 
turn to New York and spend the winter with his 
sister in that city. But life even in a great city, 
lacked the excitement and impulse of life in the 



18 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

mines and mountains of California, so, in the spring 
of 1855, taking his sister with him, he turned his 
face again towards the west, and, after a short 
tarry in San Francisco, with his sister he went into 
Klamath County, California, and again began min- 
ing at Sawyer's Bar, on Salmon River. 

There is something in the work of mining for 
gold that holds an adventurous and enthusiastic 
spirit with an entrancing grip. It seems monoton- 
ous to a looker on, but not so to the worker. The 
excitement of seeking something that is only just 
out of sight, and that something gold; and the 
hope that the next blow of the pick or the next 
pitch of the shovel will uncover it to the eager 
gaze, keeps the nerves strung to rapid and easy 
toil. And in those early days the weirdness and 
wildness of the mountain gorges, the rush and roar 
of the river, the song and shout of the successful 
miners, the lights of the campfires that set aglow 
the hillsides, the "yarns'' of the eager circle that 
drew near the cheering blaze, the stories of "finds" 
of fabulous wealth in some distant camp that seem- 
ed to breath themselves over plains and moun- 
tains and through forests for hundreds of miles to 
every miner's cabin, all conspired to spread over 



BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE. 19 

such a life a charm and a promise that were un- 
known and unfelt in city or on farm. It was a new 
civiHzation, if it was civilization, or a new barbar- 
ism, if it were a barbarism. If it were either, it 
had many of the elements of the other strongly 
blended with its own, and so constituted a new 
life, rough but charming, developing a character 
of strong vigor, of high independence, with a kind 
of wild, penetrating intelligence that could look 
farther into a rock for a seam of gold than any 
other time or people have ever evolved. Out of 
this new civilized-barbarism have developed many 
of the strongest and most practical intellects of 
our national history. Out of it have come many 
of the purest and most chivalrous Christian lives 
that have blessed humanity. Amidst it have been 
kindled to immortal song poetic spirits that else 
had dreamed themselves away in unsung rhap- 
sodies amidst the monotonous and uninspiring 
bricks and walls of the dreary cities, or in measur- 
ing calicos and woolseys behind the counters of vil- 
lage traders. There is a relation of beauty and 
poetry between true souls and Sierra heights up 
there in the skies, and murmuring cascades and 



20 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

flowing rivers in the gorges and on the plains. 
Since Bryant sung of 

"Where rolls the Oregon, 

And bears no sound save his own dashiugs." 

till Miller glorified the mountain peaks of Cali- 
fornia with the ''Song of the Sierras," it has been 
thus. 

Mr. Fletcher remained at Sawyer's Bar as a 
miner until the fall of 1858, when he removed a 
few miles to a place known as "Russian Creek," 
where he secured interests in mining property and 
applied himself with his usual industry to the hard 
toil of the miner. Nothing of special note oc- 
curred in his life or fortune during the first year 
that he spent on Russian Creek. He had a home 
kept by his sister, whom he cherished very fondly 
and faithfully, and the months of daily toil in the 
mines during the svmimer of 1859 were pleas- 
ant. His lot seemed fixed for life. He had 
drifted off the ocean and drifted, almost with- 
out purpose, into the mountains of Califor- 
nia. But life has its eras, many of them 
seemingly beyond our own ordering, but it 
may be guided by a wiser and more powerful hand 



BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE. 21 

than our own. So it may prove with Mr. 
Pletcher. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE CHANGED LIFE. 

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which 
is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said imto 
thee, ye must be born again."— Jesus. 

^^ HE life that Mr. Fletcher had lived up to 
^ the fall of 1859 was, as we have seen, that 
of a seafarer and miner. While such a life had in 
it much that would prove detrimental and even 
ruinous to a man of weak moral nature, to one of 
a vigorous sense of the reality of life there was in 
it an experience that could be made very effective 
and useful in the future. A wide knowledge of the 
world, and a wide acquaintance with all classes 
and conditions of men, gained by personal contact 
with them, was a kind of education that compen- 
sated in a good measure for the lack ofthe educa- 
tion of the schools. None have greater opportu- 
nities for acquiring such knowledge than the sail- 
or and the miner. They see men at their best and 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 23 

at their worst. They become acquainted with the 
kindest and noblest of men, and with the hardest 
and meanest. They meet and mingle with the 
most truly religious and the most shockingly wick- 
ed. They hear prayers and profanity in the same 
company. Drunkenness reels and staggers before 
them or lies down and wallows in the mire of the 
gutter, and sobriety walks with manly uprightness 
and clean garb at the same time. They see the dif- 
ference; and the man of natural moral strength 
instinctively comes to choose the better for his 
portion. The lesson may not always be learned 
quickly, but it is quite sure to be finally learned. 
It may not always be learned radically, so as to 
lead to a distinctively religious life, but it will often 
be so; and when it is it makes a character that 
becomes a worthy model of life. This was the re- 
sult with Mr. Fletcher. 

He had now reached thirty years of age. His 
naturally sincere mind had been prepared in many 
ways for the planting of the seed of truth within 
it, and when it was once planted it could rapidly 
spring up into a gracious harvest. The instru- 
mentality that finally reached this result was sim- 
ple, yet "mighty through God." 



24 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

In the autumn of 1859 a religious friend by the 
name of Henry Ferrett made a visit to the mining- 
camp of Mr. Clough and Fletcher, and spent the 
evening in a religious conversation with Mr. 
Clough, Mr. Fletcher being a simple Hstener. He 
had never read the Bible. He had never attended 
religious meetings. His naturally inquisitive mind 
detected at once that Mr. Ferrett was in posses- 
sion of something to which he was a stranger. On 
retiring for the night, after a chapter of the Word 
of God had been read by Mr. Clough, Mr. Ewing 
made an earnest prayer that God would apply the 
truth about which they had been talking to the 
hearts of all present. Mr. Fletcher says: 

'•It was the first time I had knelt in prayer for many, 
many years. I then and there gave my heart to God, and 
asked Him to teach me how to pray and lead me in the 
way of truth. The few little prayers I had learned when 
I was a child, out of our Catholic prayer book, I believe, 
since God has shown me the way of truth, were not in 
harmony with God's word." 

To the truth that makes "wise unto salvation" 
Mr. Fletcher was an utter stranger up to this time. 
All about him were like himself. His closest asso- 
ciates were irreligious. His own sister, his broth- 
er-in-law, his daily companions, all alike forgot 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 25 

God. It was under such unfavorable surround- 
ings that then and there Mr. Fletcher's mind and 
heart reached the high resolve to surrender to 
God. The way, the time, the completeness of his 
resolve and the deliberate earnestness of his action 
under it, mark the inherent independence and sin- 
cerity of his nature, as well as the reality of his 
change "from darkness to light." He says of it: 

"I did not experience that joy and ecstacy which some 
have felt, but I felt an abiding witness of the Spirit of God 
in my soul that He had pardoned my sins and accepted 
me as righteous in His sight for the sake of Christ." 

How thoroughly this work of regeneration 
changed the course and purpose as well as the mo- 
tive and spirit of his life is expressed in his own 
record of the event. He says: 

"I then commenced to strive to read His word, for I had 
no one to teach me but God. How many times I went on 
my knees and spread my Bible before the Lord, and there 
spelt out the word, for I could not read. But the Lord, 
Avho is more willing .o give than I was to ask Him, gave me 
that light by which I was enabled to read His word in a 
short time, and also how to write, so that all I am I owe 
to the goodness of God towards me." 

One can hardly imagine less favorable condi- 
tions for the development of the religious and in- 



26 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

tellectual life of a man like Mr. Fletcher than 
those that surrounded him at this time. The true- 
ness and decision of his action aUenated his old 
friends, and they 'Svent by on the other side." 
But their loss was his gain. God did not forsake 
him, but raised up other and better friends; for 
He never leaves himself without a witness to those 
that seek Him. Not long after his conversion he 
was minded by the Divine Spirit, to visit the fami- 
ly of a Mr. Reany. During the visit Mrs. Reany 
spoke most earnestly about seeking the Saviour, 
and finding his heart inclined that way, encour- 
aged him in every way she could. Among other 
helps she gave him two of the books that have 
helped mould the Christian life of thousands, 
namely, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Dod- 
ridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. 
These were the first reHgious books he ever read; 
and these were read when he was only able to read 
at all by the laborious spelling out of each individ- 
ual word. After he had thus read them once he 
took them back to their owner with the acknowl- 
edgment that he could not understand them. She 
persuaded him to take them back and read them 
again; and herself gave him some instructions 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 27 

how to read them understandingly. He took 
them again, read them over more carefully, earn- 
estly praying to God to enlighten his mind so that 
he could understand them. The prayer was an- 
swered, and he was greatly blessed then, and 
through all his Hfe, by this ministry of these two 
eminent and devoted men, long after they had 
gone to Heaven. 

Mrs. Reany so illustrates a phase of the frag- 
mentary religious life found in mining regions, and 
on the frontiers, that we should not pass by this 
incident without a brief notice of it. Mr. Fletch- 
er speaks of her most tenderly and gratefully. Her 
interest in him reHgiously led to inquiry concern- 
ing her, when he found ''she was a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church at Saywyer's Bar; 
a good, pious woman, one who was always striving 
to lead sinners into the light and liberty of the chil- 
dren of God.'' This good woman evidently be- 
came ''the guide, philosopher and friend" of Mr. 
Fletcher in his earUest Christian life, and, without 
a doubt, her influence and teaching did much to 
fashion that life that ripened into such a beautiful 
fruitage in later years. His own brief reference to 



28 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

this early Christian friendship is so tender and 
frank that we here transcribe it. He says: 

"I was living seven miles from her place of residence, so 
I had not many opportunities of speaking to her. When T 
would go to see her the first question she would ask me 
Avas how I was getting along spiritually. She won my cou- 
tidence and I opened ray mind to her freely. O, how the 
tears ran from her eyes when I told her of my resolve to 
serve God and make my way to heaven. She then invited 
me to join her little class and become a member of her 
church. I told her when I came down again I would let 
her know about it. In the meantime I was striving to read 
my Bible, but could not read it very well yet: though the 
Lord was giving me light and liberty in it. 

"The next time I went to Sawyer's Bar was in April, 
1860, It was on Sunday, and I met Mrs. Reany going to 
hold her Bible class and class meeting. I asked her what 
that meant. She told me if I would go with her I would 
find out for myself. I thank God I did find out one thing. I 
found out that it was more profitable for me to be there 
than to spend the hours in the saloon or bar-room. When 
the little meeting was over Mrs. Beany told me that their 
Presiding Elder would be there on the twelfth of May to 
hold their quarterly meeting, and asked me to attend it. I 
told her that I would be down and hear a Methodist 
preacher for the first time in my life. I spent the time be- 
fore the quarterly meeting reading my Bible and improving 
my mind. I made some inquiries about the doctrines and 
discipline of the Methodist Church, and made up my mind 
to become a member of that church at the coming quarter- 
ly meeting. 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 29 

"As I was about to join another church than that under 
which I was brought up, I put myself under the guidance 
of God, to be led by Him, for He had assured me in His 
Word if I would acknowledge Him in all my ways, that He 
Avould direct my paths. 

"May the eleventh. I left home to attend the quarterly 
meeting, and on May 12th, 1860, at Sawyer's Bar, on Sal- 
mon Kiver, Klamath County, California, I joined the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church on probation, under Nelson Rea- 
souer, presiding elder of the Mount Shasta District, Cali- 
fornia Conference." 

Mr. Fletcher concludes this touchmg account 
of his early Christian life up to his union with the 
visible church with an earnest prayer for grace and 
guidance in the life he had thus and there under- 
taken, and solemnly records his vow^ of fidelity as a 
member of that church with which he had connect- 
ed himself. How he kept that vow will appear in 
the entire course of this narrative. 

It appears a strange coincidence that the Rev. 
Nelson Reasoner, under whose ministry Mr. 
Fletcher became a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, should have been one of the most 
intimate of the early ministerial friends of the writ- 
er of these memoirs, when we Avere both in our 
early twenties in Western New York. We have 
not met for nearly fifty years, but our works thtts 



30 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

meet in the actual and recorded life of our dear 
Brother Fletcher, thousands of miles distant from 
where our early associations were formed. 

Thus the wandering, wayward life of William 
S. Fletcher, after being tossed by the storms of all 
the seas so long, and buffeted and beaten by so 
many waves and adverse tides, came to safe anch- 
orage at last, and he could joyously sing: 

My soul in sad exile was out on life's sea, 

So burdened witli sin and distress, 
Till I heard a sweet voice saying make me your choice, 

And I entered the haven of rest. 

I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest, 

I'll sail the wide seas no more: 
The tempest may sweep o'er the wild stormy deep; 

In Jesus I'm safe evermore. 

Here in the fastnesses of the mountains this 
rover from the seas found this safety; and, with a 
little band of eight, who there represented the 
great Church of Christ on the earth, connected 
himself as a Christian. As these eight names had 
such a vital relation to the after Hfe of Mr. Fletch- 
er, we transcribe them from his journal: Joseph 
Beasley, leader; Henry Ferrett, E. Lee, Joseph 
Smith, Josiah Gwin, Mrs. Reany, Mrs. Luckett 
and W. S. Fletcher. 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 31 

It will be interesting and profitable to trace the 
early Christian life of Mr. Fletcher, while he re- 
mained in this locality, a little farther. His helpers 
were very few in number, though these few were 
men and women of good sense and solid character. 
They had no pastor, and only once in three months 
were favored with a visit from the Presiding Elder 
of whom we have spoken. But the means of 
grace, like class meetings, Bible class, prayer meet- 
ing, were not neglected. Mr. Fletcher lost no op- 
portunity for improvement in knowledge, as well 
as in piety. Immediately on his conversion an im- 
pulse to do good to others became the controlling- 
force of his mind. Small as was the light kindled 
in his heart, and few as there were among the 
rough miners of the mountains to profit by it, it 
was never hid under a bushel. There is a charm- 
ing simplicity and honesty in the words in which 
he himself wrote of his first participation in pub- 
lic religious services. It was not long after he had 
connected himself with the church. He says: 

"Our class leader gave out an appointment for a prayer 
meeting in connection with our class meeting. As it was 
the first prayer meeting that I had ever attended, and the 
first that had ever been held in our class since I united 



32 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

with it, I did not know how I should get through with it. 
I had never prayed in public, and was greatly troubled 
during the week to know how I should act 1 wrote a little 
prayer for the coming meeting and committed it to mem- 
ory. It was well fixed in my mind, as I hardly thought of 
anything else during the week. When Sabbath evening 
came and our meeting time drew near I was very much 
embarrassed about my little prayer. Although I could 
repeat it readily, I felt that I had not confidence in myself. 
As our meeting progressed I scarcely knew what was going 
on, as my mind was so taken up with my little prayer. 
The class leader called on me to pray. As I was in the 
act of kneeling my little prayer vanished from my mind. 
As quick as thought it came into my mind to ask God to 
be my present help in time of need. Blessed be God! I 
prayed in a way I bad never prayed before. I had an 
access to the throne of grace I had never had before. This 
is the second time the Lord has taught me not to put too 
much confidence in my own strength, and I have profited, 
I trust, by my own experiences, to trust more in God and 
less in myself." 

Thus early, while he was yet only a probationer 
in the church, this uneducated young miner began 
to evince that sturdy honesty of purpose and 
whole-hearted consecration to God which marked, 
as the reader will see, all his career, and made his 
life so widely useful to lost men. 

The long mountain winters come early in these 
rugged ranges where the miner seeks for gold.. 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 33 

Hence the last visit of the Presiding Elder to Saw- 
yer's Bar for 1860 came in October. Mr. Fletcher 
notes the date — October 26th — as the time he first 
partook of 'The Supper of the Lord." He speaks 
of it most devoutly and prays ''may God cleanse 
me from sin and make me a partaker of His divine 
nature." Incidentally, in the same entry in his 
journal in which he records this incident, he re- 
fers to another fact that shows his intense thirst 
for knowledge as well as religious experience. It 
will be remembered that before his conversion to 
God, only six months before this time, he could 
neither read nor write. During this fall he pur- 
chased Clarke's Commentaries, six very large vol- 
umes, one of the most learned works that the 
world had ever seen when they were published, 
paying for them |22.00. During all that long win- 
ter he "improved every opportunity in reading 
them." In revicAving this time he says: 

"I hope the light I have received from these books will 
never be blotted out of my memory. I now begin to feel 
the want of education. All that I know God has taught 
me since I gave Him my heart. He has enabled me to 
read and write, and above all He has taught me how to 
live; and I have a reasonable hope that when my proba- 



34 WILLIAM S. P^LETCHER. 

tionary life is over He will receive me to His everlasting 
Kingdom to praise Him forever in Heaven." 

On May 12, 1861, Mr. Fletcher was admitted 
to ''full connection" in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church by Rev. Nelson Reasoner, who had admit- 
ted him upon probation exactly one year before. 
His own reflections on this occasion open the 
door of his heart as nothing we could write would, 
and will give the reader a clear insight into the 
true philosophy of his life. He writes: 

"In looking over tliis the first year of my Christian ex- 
perience, my heart feels humbly thankful to God for His 
merciful care over me. When I look back and see what I 
was before I gave God my heart, and then see what I am 
now, surely my soul is grateful to God for taking 'my feet 
out of the miry clay and establishing my goings and 
putting a new song in my mouth, even praises to my God.' 
He has caused the light to shine out of darkness, and He 
hath shined in my heart to give me the light of the knowl- 
edge of the glory of God in the grace of Jesus Christ. My 
prayer to God is that I may be perfected in love and filled 
with all the fullness of God." 

At this time the Presiding Elder introduced Mr. 
Fletcher to a new and wider field of Christian in- 
fluence. He organized a Sabbath School, and 
though Mr. Fletcher had never been in one in his 
life, appointed him a teacher. It was not Mr. 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 35 

Fletcher's way to decline opportunities for doing- 
good, and so he readily entered this open door, 
and took charge of a most interesting class of girls. 
There was an excellent library of books in connec- 
tion with the school, and these Mr. Fletcher him- 
self read with his usual care and attention. Use- 
ful as he was to his class, his work in the school 
was scarcely less useful to himself. He learned 
the blessedness of doing good as he had never 
learned it before. Giving, he received. Strength- 
ening others, he was strengthened. Leading 
others in the right way, he was led in it himself. 
He was never slow to learn this lesson, and the ef- 
fect of it, as we shall see, remained with him ever 
after. Fortified by his year's advancing experi- 
ence in the things of God and in the work of God, 
he came into the early summer of 1862 only to 
meet more trying difficulties than any that he had 
hitherto encountered. 

It was characteristic of Mr. Fletcher that he had- 
a ''fixed heart." He was never unstable. If ever 
a man could adopt the words of the Psalmist with- 
out reserve, "O God, my heart is fixed," that man 
was W. S. Fletcher. It was the element that 
made him. One feels a holy pride of humanity 



B6 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

itself when he studies such a Christian, however 
humble his accidental sphere in life. It is the 
heart of all true greatness. It is the sure prophet 
of victory, whether on the highways or in the by- 
ways of life. 

The trials that came to ^Ir. Fletcher in the sum- 
mer of 1862 were in no wise of a personal nature, 
but related solely to the condition of the work of 
God in the small community in which. he took so 
deep an interest. The Sabi:)ath school in which 
he was a teacher began to decline. Superinten- 
dent, teachers and even the pastor forsook it, un- 
til Air. Fletcher and his class were all that re- 
mained. Faithful among the faithless and discour- 
aged, he sought the advice and encouragement of 
the pastor, but he met discouragement rather. 
He declared his purpose to continue it unless his 
own class deserted him. The pastor advised him 
to "dry it up." Mr. Fletcher appointed a meeting 
for the afternoon of Sunday. Every member of 
his class, seventeen in all. was present. He di- 
vided the class; gave one to each of two girls 
fourteen years of age, taking the superintendency 
himself. This prompt and faithful action on 
the part of Mr. Fletcher saved the Sunday school, 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 37 

and continued this instrumentality of grace among 
these scattered and needy children of the moun- 
tains. It was characteristic of the man; such a 
spirit as has marked the work of his whole life. 
He records this as the most trying week of his 
experience up to this time, but it brought him its 
usual compensating lesson, namely, "not to trust 
too much in others if I want to make progress in 
holiness of heart and life." 

Thus amidst the solitudes of this mining gulch, 
the work of God was carried on and the standard 
of the cross upheld, and mainly by the instrumen- 
tality of this one man; not yet two years rescued 
from the bondage of sin; and now only just start- 
ed on that career of usefulness which has given 
him such a warm place in the hearts of thousands 
on the sea and on the land. x\n incident will 
show the gentle yet decided force with which 
he asserted his Christian principles and vindicated 
his Christian liberty among his mining compan- 
ions in these proverbially ungodly associations. 

In one of his mining ventures on "White's 
Gulch" he accepted a partner who was a very pro- 
fane man. Mr. Fletcher reasoned with him about 
the follv and wickedness of his course, and then 



38 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

told him that he was a member of the Methodist 
church and had made his house a house of prayer; 
and if he came to live with him he would have to 
conform to the rules of his home. This decisive 
course was effective. The man came, and within 
a few weeks became himself a member of the 
church. At this place there had been almost liter- 
ally no rehgious influence or sentiment until Mr. 
Fletcher came into the church. Others, among 
whom were some of those who had been associated 
with him at Sawyer's Bar, came afterwards. As 
winter came on he went through the camp, look- 
ing up all those who desired to live a Christian life, 
called them together at his "old cabin," and 
though there were but few of them, and only "five 
outsiders who used to attend these meetings," or- 
ganized and kept up an "old fashioned prayer 
meeting" all winter. Some were converted; among 
them a Frenchman, a Catholic, by the name of 
Nichols, who was unable to speak EngHsh, and 
used to pray and speak in his own language, while 
the great tears rolled down his face and best be- 
spoke his gratitude to God for deliverance from 
the double bondage of sin and the superstitions of 
Catholicism. 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 39 

During this winter strong efforts were made by 
the CathoHc priest to break up the Sabbath school 
under Mr. Fletcher's superintendence. Some 
Catholic children attended it, and were becoming 
greatly interested in it, and especially in the read- 
ing of the Sunday School Advocate. This he for- 
bade them to read, and denounced all who read it 
as heretics. Mr. Fletcher, in his usual open and 
frank way went directly to the parents of the chil- 
dren and inquired if they objected to their children 
attending, the school and reading the papers 
They replied that they did not. He then encour- 
aged them to come, gave them the papers, and, 
unawed and unashamed, went straight forward in 
his "work of faith and labor of love." 



CHAPTER III. 

TO A NEW FIELD. 

"It is often reserved for *every-day people,' as we are 
apt to call them, to illustrate one of the facts of life— that 
a crisis produces the man to meet it."— Gustav Kobe. 

A yr R. FLETCHER'S work seemed now to 
^ be done in the mountains of Califor- 
nia. Providence appeared to be calling him 
to a far northern field. He had been thrown 
upon the golden coast, a waif of the seas, 
almost without purpose, and wholly without 
a large and noble aim in life. He appeared to 
others, and probably to himself, like one of the 
vast multitude of human beings who, as tramps 
of the land and rovers of the ocean, existed only to 
wander in aimless disquietude of being, wherever 
the momentary whim or the chance currents of 
impulse might take them, and then to die out on 
the desert sands, or deep in the mountain gorges, 
or on the restless tides of the never quiet seas, and 



TO A NEW FIELD. 41 

be buried out of sight and thought of their more 
favored, or more highly endowed human fellows. 
Three decades of life had thus gone, more than one 
of which had been spent in California at a time 
that witnessed the utter moral and intellectual 
wreck of more men in proportion to the pop- 
ulation of the State than ever occurred in any- 
other land in the same length of time. Who 
could have prophesied that this uneducated Irish 
boy should wring, out of that hard lot, the ele- 
ments of a character that should make him in the 
next thirty years such an honored instrument of 
good to so many people as he became. If he did 
not dig much gold out of the gulches of these 
California mountains he did dig out of them that 
which was better than gold. All this turned on a 
single fact, namely, that he was wise enough to re- 
spond to the call of God to His love and service at 
almost the first time that call ever came to him; 
and that he kept himself open to that call of God, 
and lived "obedient to the heavenly vision'* that 
then, as we have shown, rose upon his soul. 

It was in July, 1863, that Mr. Fletcher decided 
to leave California, and turn his face towards far 
Northern Idaho. He felt it was God's will; why, he 



42 WILLIA:M S. FLETCHER. 

could not tell; where it would lead him he did not 
know. Tender and touching- was his farew^ell to 
his little Sunday school in the mountains. Great 
their regrets in bidding him farewell. Among 
them was one, especially, of w^hom we have spoken 
before as his "guide, philosopher and friend," in 
the beginning of his Christian life: Mrs. Reany. 
Probably she Httie understood the far reach of her 
good work in leading him to Christ; but still 
there must have been a sensitive chord quivering 
in her heart when she bade him good-bye. Mr. 
Fletcher records his gratitude to God and to those 
with whom he had lived and labored in very tender 
terms; and at the same time expresses his deep re- 
gret that he "had not had some one to lead him to 
Jesus in the days of his youth." 

His sister and her husband had been living with 
or near him, in the mines for some years. They 
were not only unconverted, but had been violently 
opposed to the religious life of their brother. 
With a fidelity and tenderness that was wonderful, 
he had counseled and besought them to give their 
hearts to God. He had been to his sister more 
than brother; father, provider and friend, but she 
flung his counsel to the mountain winds and 



TO A NEW FIELD. 43 

turned away from his God and Saviour. When he 
was to leave her in this great wild of lonehness and 
sin the memory of his kindness, of his faithfulness, 
of his love, overcame her stubborn heart, and she 
promised him in the last words she then spoke to 
him, that she would ''give her heart to God and 
join our church." With this new benediction on 
his soul he turned away and went out, ''not know- 
ing whither he went." 

On leaving the narrow field where he had so 
faithfully striven to do all that came to him in the 
work of the Master, Mr. Fletcher joined the great 
movement of the mining population of the Pacific 
coast northward towards the newly opened mining 
regions of Washington and Idaho Territories. In- 
dustrious, provident and frugal, although his min- 
ing adventures had not brought him great wealth, 
they had not left him in that abject poverty that 
has been the result w4th such multitudes of the 
men who, like himself, entered upon them without 
the education and moral training that enabled 
them to cope with the trained rascality of the 
gamblers and saloon keepers who laid their plans 
of knavery and robbery for every unwary visitor. 
From such a fate he was rescued by his religion, 



44 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

without which the name of W. S. Fletcher would 
have perished with the unnumbered multitudes 
that went down unknown and unregretted in the 
gulches of California and in the mountains of Ida- 
ho. For this reason alone, when he left California, 
he left amidst the benedictions and tears and pray- 
ers of those who loved him; those whom he loved. 
If he did not carry much gold with him on his 
journey, he carried golden memories far better 
than gold. Yet he went in comfort, and his jour- 
ney northward became the means of shaping the 
ultimate field of his true life work. 

The incident on his journey to the north which 
most aided him in that which was always 
uppermost in his mind — his religious life — was 
the falling providentially into the company 
of Bishop E. S. Janes, one of the sweetest, 
most beloved and useful bishops of his own 
church. At Yreka, California, where he spent 
the first Sabbath after he left his old home, 
the Bishop preached; and from Yreka to Ore- 
gon was his traveling companion in the close 
fellowship of a stage-coach. Those who knew the 
tenderness and simplicity of the Bishop s manner 
and the sweet and insinuating method of his con- 



TO A NEW FIELD. 45 

versation in private, will understand how quickly 
and completely he would win the confidence and 
trust of such a heart as Mr. Fletcher's. Nor would 
the eager, sympathising attention of the latter to 
everything said intended or adapted to benefit a 
hearer, fail to draw forth from the good Bishop all 
his good natured efforts to benefit the listener. 
Like all really great and good men, the Bishop was 
not pretentious, either in garb or manners, but 
plain and direct; always affable, always kind. 
Probably the week spent in this journey in this 
coach with the Bishop, with the opportunity it 
brought Mr. Fletcher, of observing the spirit and 
listening to the conversation and sharing the ad- 
vice of this truly godly man and most able Bishop, 
did as much as any one week of his life to elevate 
and ennoble his conception of true manhood and 
consecrated piety. And when the same bishop vis- 
ited Oregon again, many years after, Mr. Fletch- 
er met him and re-called to him the incident of this 
ride together through the mountains of Northern 
California and Southern Oregon, and inquired if 
he 'Remembered the Httle Irishman who was his 
traveling companion on the journey." "O yes," 
replied the venerable man, ''and I have often and 



46 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

always thought of you in connection with that 
trip." So this humble young miner and this exalt- 
ed Bishop of the church were a mutual ministry of 
help and pleasure by the way. 

From Portland, which was reached x^ugust 7th. 
and where one Sabbath was spent, improved, as 
was usual with him, in attendance on all the serv- 
ices of the house of God, Mr. Fletcher pursued his 
journey for "Bannock City," Idaho, where he ar- 
rived on the 31st of August, 1863. 

''Bannock City," later and now known as "Idaho 
City," was one of the richest mining camps ever 
discovered on the Pacific slope. It is located in 
the far interior, in the very top of the Salmon River 
range of mountains, about thirty-five miles north 
of the present "Boise City," the beautiful Capital 
of the now State of Idaho. It Avas a place of awful 
wickedness. The vagrants, the gamblers, the 
thieves, the murderes and the prostitutes, who had 
been driven away from the older mining towns of 
the coast on account of their crimes, had all gath- 
ered in these Idaho mountains, where they organ- 
ized a pandemonium of crime. They reigned for a 
long time supreme. They organized society in the 
interest of crime, and for the protection of crim- 



TO A NEW FIELD. ' 47 

inals. They elected civil officers for the same pur- 
pose. Sheriffs were bandits, and treasurers were 
thieves. Bannock City at that time was a real Acel- 
dama/'the field of blood." Never before, and prob- 
ably never since, even in mining camps, was there 
a more desperate body of men gathered in one 
place. 

Probably, however, in the very worst mining 
communities of the coast some of the vei-y best 
men are found. Indeed, where the worst of the 
bad prevail, the best of the good are found, for 
God never leaves Himself without a witness. So it 
was in this place, and ultimately, here as elsewhere, 
the few righteous proved themselves more than 
a match for the many wicked, and graduall}^ re- 
stored society to the conditions of civilization 
known in other places. The writer for many years 
subsequently visited 'Tdaho City,'' officially in the 
work of his ministry, and found quietude where 
there had been storm; peace and safety where 
there had been robbery and murder. 

In the work of rescuing the place from its dark 
pall of wrong and sin Mr. Fletcher was the pioneer. 
Those who have followed us thus far in the inci- 
dents of his life would not expect he would enter 



48 WILLIAM S. FLETCHjl.R. 

even such a place as this, and not let his light shine 
forth. Almost before he had struck his miner's 
pick into the gravel he makes this record: 

"The week after I came here I started out to hunt up 
some of our members, for I knew that there must be many 
of them here, but I could find only four on my first round. 
I got them to promise that they would meet me the next 
Sabbath evening at the Colorado House for a class and 
prayer meeting. They came, and we had a most refresh- 
ing season. As far as I can find out this was the first 
prayer and class meeting that has been held in this place." 

Undoubtedly to Mr. Fletcher belongs the hon- 
or of thus gathering into an organization the first 
band of Christian workers in those Idaho moun- 
tains. But he was soon followed by others, and 
about three months after this small organization 
was effected, Rev. C. S. Kingsley, a very able min- 
ister from Portland, Oregon, reached the place, 
and entered at once on the work of organizing a 
society and erecting a house of worship. He high- 
ly approved the work done by Mr. Fletcher, and 
from that time forward they earnestly co-operated 
in the work before them. By May, 1864, a church 
was completed and opened, a class of twelve mem- 
bers organized, and a Sunday school established, 
and thus the institutions of Christianity were per- 



TO A NEW FIELD. 49 

manently erected in Idaho City. In all this work 
Mr. Fletcher was a chief instrument. 

There was little of special incident attending 
the work in which Mr. Fletcher y^as engaged in 
Idaho during the remainder of the time of his resi- 
dence there; which was until late in September, 
1864. He did, what is the most difificult of all 
things for a Christian to do, ''always abounded in 
the work of the Lord." In his mining claim, where 
he toiled from day to day, in the prayer and class 
meetings, at which he was always present, on the 
highway where he walked with the multitude, in 
the places of trade, everywhere and always he was 
the gentle, kindly man; the devoted, self-denying 
Christian. Trials were borne with resignation; la- 
bors performed with intelligent trust; and his 
open hand ever had its gift of charity for the needy, 
or his contribution to help forward the work of 
God. When the time came that he felt God's call 
to him was elsewhere, he sold out his mining claim, 
adjusted all his temporal affairs with conscientious 
faithfulness, ready to go where God had work for 
him to do most to glorify Himself. Under date of 
September 2nd he makes this entry: 

"As this is the last time I intend to be with the children 



50 V>'ILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

in the Sabbath school. I spoke to them about loving their 
Saviour, especially to my own class. May the good seed 
that has been sown bring forth abundant fruit in their 
young hearts to the glory of God. I feel greatly thankful 
to God for His assisting grace Avhich has enabled me to 
prove faithful to my calling which is in Christ Jesus during 
my sojourn in this wicked place. I can say from an honest 
heart that I have grown in grace and in the knowledge of 
the truth as it is in Jesus since I came here, and as I in- 
tend leaving this place to-morrow for Portland and San 
Francisco, and if it is the Lord's will, for Ireland, I de- 
sire above all things to acknowledge God in all my ways, 
that he may direct my paths." 

These reflections and this prayer are in harmony 
with all he did and all he felt from the moment of 
his conversion. He kept God in all his thoughts, 
and God kept and cared for him in all his ways. 

His journey to Portland and thence to San Fran- 
cisco via Victoria, was without noteworthy inci- 
dent. In San Francisco he immediately connected 
himself with the church of which Jesse T. Peck, 
D. D., afterwards Bishop, was pastor. Here he 
had the satisfaction of seeing his sister, who had 
promised him at Sawyer's Bar, when he was about 
to leave for Idaho, that she would become a Chris- 
tian and unite herself with the Methodist Church, 
give her name also as a probationer to the church. 



TO A NEW FIELD. 51 

What seemed to him the special work God would 
now have for him to do was to care for the relig- 
ious and intellectual improvement of that beloved 
sister. He proved his real manhood by the care 
he took of her. He met her on his arrival in San 
Francisco, surrounded by influences greatly ad- 
verse to her spiritual and intellectual well being, 
but he immediately put her into the Santa Clara 
Female Collegiate Institute, under the family care 
of Rev. Mr. Tuthill and lady, where all her in- 
terests were tenderly and faithfully cared for; him- 
self paying all bills for tuition and board. This, he 
felt, was his special call to California. Though he 
came to San Francisco with his mind fully dis- 
posed to ship for Ireland, yet he found that the 
providence of God had closed that way to him, 
and, as ever, he said "Thy will be done." When 
all his arrangements for his sister's welfare were 
made and he was about to leave her again, he says 
in his journal: 

"The few days I have spent with her have been a bright 
spot in my life. I have been enabled by the grace of God 
to sacrifice my own pleasure in giving up the idea of going 
to Ireland to spend the winter, in order that I might make 
my sister more comfortable and happy. Our parting this 
time has been most affectionate. Her heart seems to be 



52 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

touched by the power of God. I feel very lonely in leaving 
her, not i^nowing where I shall go; but I am determined to 
go wherever the Lord shall direct, for He will direct me 
aright." 

He returned to San Francisco, where the im- 
pression was forcibly made upon his mind that he 
should go back to Portland, Oregon. To him it 
was a heavenly vision, and immediately he was 
obedient to it, and on the 29th of October, 1864, 
he took passage on the steamer for that place, ar- 
riving there on the first day of November, 1864. 

Though Mr. Fletcher had now reached the place 
where was to be wrought the great work of his life, 
he was not yet to enter upon it. All his previous 
experiences, both before and after his conversion, 
had been preparatory to it. But there were yet 
other preparations to which God was bringing 
him as he was made able to bear them. The care- 
less reader might suppose, as he has followed him 
in his rovings on the sea and his journeyings on the 
land ; in his mingling with sailors on the decks of 
vessels and in the many ports to which he sailed; 
as he dug in the mines of California and Idaho, 
that he was but one of the floating thousands 
whose employments were like his, who were ever 



TO A NEW FIELD. 53 

saying-, ''Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
die;" mere floating fragments of humanity, not 
thinking what they were nor whither they were 
drifting. Now in Ireland, now in England, now in 
America; one month in Galway, the next in Liv- 
erpool, the next in New York, the next in San 
Francisco; what was there in that to prepare an 
uneducated man for any great mission of after life, 
or to qualify him to reach and influence other lives 
on a broad and efficient scale? God knew, and 
''God disposes;" and He made all these things 
work together for the good both of Mr. Fletcher 
himself and the world through him. 

On his arrival in Portland in the begining of the 
winter of 1864-5, he immediately connected himself 
with Taylor Street Church, then under the pas- 
torate of Rev. David Rutledge, and entered heart- 
ily into its work. With this change there had 
come to him the thought of a home, so he pur- 
chased a plat of ten acres of land of Rev. Albert 
Kelly, in whose family he boarded, and with his 
usual industry set to work to clear and improve 
it. In the midst of his manual toil, such as clear- 
ing and grubbing land and building a house, he be- 
gan the reading of the New Testament through 



I 



54 WILLI A^f S. FLETCHER. 

by course, while on his knees looking for God's 
blessing to be upon the word to sanctify his own 
soul. He also organized a Sabbath school in the 
neighborhood where his home was located, a few 
miles out of the city, and with a faithfulness that 
was ever one of his most prominent characteris- 
tics, attended all the services of the church and did 
whatever came to his hands as a Christian in the 
helping forv/ard all that were about him. ''To do 
good and to communicate forget not;" which 
Paul enjoined upon the early Christians, was the 
very spirit of Mr. Fletcher's life. So he says: 

"I can now see why the Lord brought me to this place. 
Here are a few followers of His without any one to looli 
after them, with no class or prayer meetings, with preach- 
ing only once in four weks by our preacher in charge, who, 
I must say, takes very little interest in us." 

This religious indifiference and spiritual desti- 
tution of the people bore heavily on his heart, and 
he set to work to remedy it in his usual sensible 
and practical way, by visiting among the people 
religiously, holding prayer meetings and class 
meetings and Sunday schools, and soon saw that 
"his labor was not in vain in the Lord." 

One cannot but wonder when he sees the results 



TO A NEW FIELD. 55 

of the work of this unpretending man in such lines 
as these, why it should have remained for him al- 
most alone of the vast multitudes in the church 
everywhere his equals, and even his superiors in 
general talents and education and even in oppor- 
tunity, to demonstrate what one man alone can do 
to further the cause of truth and piety among men. 
But so it seemed to be in the places where his lot 
was cast; but his faith and zeal never faltered and 
God never ceased to honor his devotion. For two 
years this character of work continued, while the 
experience of Mr. Fletcher seemed like an ever 
widening stream, flowing deeper and deeper, and 
more and more enriching all the land. His care- 
ful and prayerful study of the Bible made him more 
and more able to guide the people aright, and his 
expositions of Scripture in prayer and class meet- 
ings and in occasional exhortations were often 
accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit. 
Through his instrumentality the Lord added to 
the church many that were saved, but beyond 
this, and probably greater than this, during these 
years of 1865 and 1866, with a part of 1867, these 
labors and successes were a great help in the prep- 
aration of Mr. Fletcher himself for the new relig- 



56 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

ious era that was now about to dawn on his own 
soul. He had learned well how to seize opportun- 
ity, and God gives the grace of opportunity to 
those who know how to use it. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE HIGHER LIFE. 

"Leaving the things that are behind and reaching forth 
to those things that are before."— Paul. 

Take my soul and body's powers; 
Take my memory, mind and will; 
All my goods, and all my hours; 
All I know and all I feel; 
All I think, or speak, or do; 
Take my heart, but make it new. 

—Wesley 

A S at the beginning of his Christian life, at 
-^^ the opening of what may be called its first 
era of experience, Mr. Fletcher deliberately, and in 
a clear business way, made a surrender of his heart 
to God, so when the years had taught him that 
there was a deeper experience and a larger life for 
him to enjoy and express, with the same deliberate- 
ness he moved forward to their attainment. This 
will be clearly seen from the following from his 
journal: 



58 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

"Portland, ilareli 27, 1807. 
"I have this day consecrated myself anew to Jesus. I 
give Him all my sinful heart, rebellious will, my time and 
talents, and all that I possess, to be spent in His service. 
And now my blessed Jesus, I know that Thou wilt accept 
it, for I intend, God being my helper, never to take any of 
it back. I pray that I may be sanctified through the truth; 
for Thy Word is truth; and that I may adorn the doctrine 
of God my Saviour in all things. 

WILLIAM S. FLETCHER." 

The entrance of this record of his new and entire 
consecration to the service and work of his Re- 
deemer is of such signal interest, and marks so de- 
cisively such an important era in his Hfe, that it 
must be treated separate from the general story 
of that life. From the very beginning of his Chris- 
tian experience he had been remarkably single 
hearted, and had always made his religion fore- 
most in the purposes of his life. It is doubtful if 
he had forgotten to do this for a single moment, 
whether he was on the street, in the mines, in the 
church or at home. Still he had come to feel that 
there was a higher religious experience than he 
had enjoyed, and true to that prevailing purpose 
that distinguished him to reach the highest of 
which he was capable, he resolved to seek it. 



THE HIGHER LIFE. 59 

Portland at this time was greatly stiired relig- 
iously under the preaching of Rev. A. B. Earle, a 
noted evangelist who was spending a few weeks 
in special revival work in the city. Mr. Fletcher's 
home was then a few miles out of the city, but on 
Sabbath, March 24th, he walked in to hear the 
evangelist, whose fame had filled all the region 
round about, preach. After hearing him, he de- 
termined to let his "work stop for a few days" and 
devote them especially to the services of Mr. Earle. 
The direct result to himself was the awakening in 
his heart of that intense desire for an advanced ex- 
perience and a complete consecration of all his 
powers and life to God. 

With Mr. Fletcher this was no spasmodic move- 
ment impelled by an excitement that might last 
but for a day, but the logical moral result of all 
his life since he became a Christian. Always 
''leaving the things that are behind he was reach- 
ing forward towards the things that are before," 
and ''pressing towards the mark for the prize of 
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." This 
was a moving up to the light that had come to 
him. The operations of his mind while coming up 
to it were of singular intensity and interest. We 



60 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

follow them for a little, as the study of them may 
help other inquiring and struggling souls. 

In connection with his preaching, Mr. Earle 
had put into the hands of those who heard him a 
card containing a list of ten questions relating to 
the personal religious life, as follows: 

SELF EXAMINATION. 

FOR OLDER CHRISTIANS. 

1. Do I search my heart to the bottom, and act out its 
convictions? 

2. Do I believe I control my tongue and my temper? 

3. Do I really believe the Bible is the law of my heart 
and life? 

4. Do I convince men that I believe there is an eternal 
Hell? 

5. Am I greatly concerned for the salvation of men? 

6. Do I act like a Christian in my family and among my 
intimate friends? 

7. Do I fully believe I have been born again? 

S. Do I know that I have power with God in prayer? 

9. Do I believe I have been baptised with the Holy 
Spirit since my conversion? 

10. Am I sweetly resting in Christ by faith now? 

These questions, covering the very heart of 
Christian experience and life, could not but deep- 



THE HIGHER LIFE. 61 

ly impress so sincere a mind as Mr. Fletcher's, and 
he quickly and fully resolved to test their widest 
reach of experimental and practical power. 

Still he did not reach the point for which he 
aimed without a struggle. His record of it is 
plaintive and pathetic. Such words as "darkness," 
"no liberty," "struggle," "Satan using every 
means to draw me away," are the common 
terms by which he describes his emotions and feel- 
ing for some days after he had written the conse- 
cration paper at the head of this chapter, notwith- 
standing he attended the services of Mr. Earle all 
the time. Finally the conflict was ended in this 
way. He had attended a "meeting for holiness'' 
in Taylor Street Church, Portland, without any 
special profit. On his return to his home he re- 
solved to take up the next morning the ten ques- 
tions proposed by Mr. Earle, and seek in special 
prayer the grace to answer them in the affirma- 
tive. This he did, most carefully and earnestly, 
Avhile on his way to his work, a mile from his 
house; kneeling by the wayside in the woods, and 
reading them over on his knees, he accepted them 
all as the guide and test of his future Christian life. 
Still there were seasons of "restlessness," but 



62 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

no real drawing back from his vows and faith of 
consecration. The Scripture that led his mind out 
at last into the ultimate trust was First John, first 
chapter and seventh verse: ''If we walk in the 
light as he is in the light we have fellowship one 
with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son 
cleanseth us from all sin." Now he was able to 
say : — 

"Now rest, my long divided beajrt, 
Fixed on this blissful center, rest; 
Nor ever from thy Lord depart:— 
With Him of every good possest." 

There in that struggle, alone with God in the 
woods, he says: 

"My axe which I held in my hand dropped harmless at 
my side, and that beautiful hymn,— 

"There is a Fountain filled with blood, 

Drawn from Immanuel's veins: 
And sinners plunged beneath that flood, 

Lose all their guilty stains," 

spoke my faith. O, how my heart responded to the 
words of mj^ mouth! Blessed be God. I can now rejoice 
evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give 
thanks. 'Faithful is He that calleth me, who also will do 
it.' " 



THE HIGHER LIFE. 63 

Without doubt the mental and spiritual strug- 
gles of the last few days marked as distinct an era 
in the life of Mr. Fletcher as did the date and 
struggles of his first espousals. He had faithfully 
used the grace first given and God entrusted to 
him the larger riches. By the faithfulness and 
growth of his earlier Christian life he had prepared 
himself for the wider opportunities and greater 
responsibilities that God had prepared for him in 
his later life. Thus is it ever. God rcAvards faith- 
fulness by larger trust, and compensates labor by 
giving greater opportunities for labor. 

But this victory of faith and this advanced ex- 
perience in the divine life did not lift ]\Ir. Fletcher 
above the continued and faithful discharge of the 
ordinary every-day duties of the Christian life. On 
the contrary it gave a greater earnestness and a 
deeper spirituality to that work. He not only 
gave definite testimony to ''what the Lord had 
done for his soul," but in his place as a class leader, 
and in all his relations as a Christian man seeking 
to help God's children on in the heavenly way, and 
to lead sinners to a knowledge of the truth he 
walked and talked with greater freedom and en- 
largement. He not only attended the meetings 



64 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

of his own class, but visited nearly all the classes 
for many miles around, confirming and strength- 
ening them in the fellowship of the faith of Jesus. 
He made these visits on foot, and sometimes 
walked fifteen or twenty miles in a day on these 
missions of love. He did not assume to do this as 
a teacher, but as a "brother beloved." He always 
walked in an atmosphere of humility, and never 
more so than after he had experienced the blessing 
of ''perfect love." He closes up the year 1867 with 
many expressions of praise and gratitude to God 
for His abounding mercy and goodness during the 
year, especially in his "rich experience in spiritual 
things.'' He makes this grateful record: — 

"On the seventh day of last May the Lord sealed me for 
His own. The impression that was then made on my poor 
heart has grown stronger and brighter to the present mo- 
ment; and now I can say from that experience that 'the 
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth me from all sin. O, how 
humble it makes the soul to be freed from all the carnal 
mind and to be filled with the love of Jesus!" 

O that the world would taste and see 

The riches of His grace; 
The arms of love that compass me 

Would all mankind embrace." 

The early months of 1868 were marked by quite 



THE HIGHER LIFE. 65 

an enlargement of the scope of Mr. Fletcher's 
work. His singular influence in drawing the hearts 
of those with whom he associated towards Christ, 
and especially in leading believers into the higher 
experiences of the Christian life, was becoming 
widely understood, and his services were sought 
for in many places. In his own class he was be- 
loved as a brother, and he lavished his own love 
upon them all. Within a circuit of twenty miles 
from his home his kindly Christian influence was 
strongly felt. Nor was that influence confined to 
the rustic population of the hills and valleys amidst 
which his own home lay; he was as welcome and 
as beloved in the classess and Sunday schools of 
the city as he was there. Not unfrequently he 
would be with the classes in Portland in the morn- 
ing and with those several miles distant in the af- 
ternoon, edifying believers, counseling unbeliev- 
ers, speaking kindly to children, and by pureness 
of life and charity of word "commending himself 
to every man's conscience in the sight of God." 
A record or two from his dairy will indicate the 
constant character of his work at this time of his 
life. On May 10th, 1868, he says: 
"I attended the morning class in Portland, then heard 



66 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

preaching, and then led the noon class, Brother Patterson 
being absent. I then came out and led my own class. I 
thank God for all the privileges I have enjoyed this Sab- 
bath. May 11th, I went into the city to attend the Monday 
evening class. It was a feast to my soul. This is the most 
spiritual class I have attended. I love to hear Governor 
Abernethy lead his class, he is so spiritual. It is no wonder 
he has such a good class. May the Lord raise up many 
such leaders." 

When one remembers that it \yas three miles 
from Mr. Fletcher's home to the city, over a rough 
and hilly road, and that he always walked, he will 
see something of the devotion that inspired this 
man of God in all his work. The leaders to whose 
classes he was welcomed often as their leader him- 
self. Governor Abernethy and Mr. H. Patterson, 
were among the most thoroughly equipped leaders 
the writer has ever known. Both men of age and 
experience, well trained intellectually as well as 
spiritually, they were well adapted to the largest 
influence in their spheres. 

Up to about this time Mr. Fletcher's official re- 
lation as class leader had been with classes in 
rural neighborhoods. In 1868 he was appoint- 
ed by Rev. C. C. Stratton, pastor of Tay- 
lor Street Church in Portland, leader of the 



THE HIGHER LIFE. 67 

morning class. He had felt that God was pre- 
paring him for greater work, but what it might 
be he awaited God's movings to know. So 
when this appointment came it was accepted as 
from God, and he girded himself to meet its re- 
sponsibiHties in the best and most useful manner 
possible. That the reader may see a little deeper 
into his heart we quote from his journal under 
date of June 8th, 1869:— 

"Brother Stratton appointed me to take charge of the 
Sabbath morning class at 9 o-clock. My confidence is 
strong in God that He will greatly bless me in my labor 
of love. I have been asking my Heavenly Father that He 
would open a door for me where I could be most useful for 
the remainder of my life, and I have reason to believe that 
He has work for me to do in Portland. O, may I have that 
grace in my heart that will make me to be greatly useful 
in winning souls to Christ. O, my Heavenly Father, when 
I think of a poor sinner, who could not even read, saved by 
grace and made to be holding such an important office in 
Thy Church, surely I must say, 'eye hath not seen nor ear 
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the 
things which thou hast laid up for those that love thee.' " 

Mr. Fletcher began his service in his class meet- 
ing with eight present. His first work was to hunt 
up the long-absent ones and gather them back into 
the fold. Meantime his relation to his former class 



68 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

on the mountain some miles from the city con- 
tinued, and they were as faithfully watched and 
sought after as ever. But the time was coming 
near when much of that widely scattered work in 
the country that he had attended to so carefully 
for such a length of time would be given up to 
other hands, and his own would be transferred to 
the more concentrated field of the city. After 
some weeks of the usual routine of class meetings, 
prayer meeting and Sabbath school work in and 
about the city, and at the same time attending to 
his temporal affairs in his usual exact and con- 
scientious manner, the Quarterly Conference of 
Taylor Street Church, under the advice of the 
then pastor, Dr. J. H. Wythe, offered him the very 
responsible and deHcate place of janitor of the 
church. 

Taylor Street Church has been for many years 
the leading church of Methodism in the North- 
west. A large church, with a membership count- 
ing many hundreds, and a great congregation, it 
was no small work to care for the church itself and 
look after the accommodation and comfort of the 
congregations that thronged its services. 

It is not strange that Mr. Fletcher hesitated. 



THE HIGHER LIFE. 69 

It was unlike any other work to which he had 
ever been called. It had much to do with the tem- 
poral side of the church work, and might possibly 
interfere with the spiritual opportunities that were 
so dear to his heart. But to him opportunities 
were providences, and he must needs lay this be- 
fore the Lord and ask for His direction before he 
answered. He says: "I spread the whole matter 
before the Lord and asked Him what I should do 
about it. The passage of Scripture that was ap- 
plied to my mind was, ''Behold, I have set before 
thee an open door.'' In this word God's voice was 
heard and accordingly he accepted the offer of 
the church, and immediately began to prepare for 
the removal of all his personal interests to Port- 
land. He entered on the duties to which he had 
been called on the 8th day of November, 1868, 
with this characteristic prayer upon his lips: 

"May God enable me to discbarge all my duties in the 
most profitable manner, and may my coming among this 
people be abundantly blessed." 



CHAPTER V. 

JANITOR OF TAYLOR STREET CHURCH. 

"I rest in Thy Almighty power; 
The name of Jesus is my tower. 

That hides my life above. 
Thou canst, Thou wilt my helper be; 
My confidence is all In Thee, 

Thou faithful God of Love." 

—Charles Wesley. 

T X T'lTH the poetic quotation from Charles 
^ ^ Wesley that stands at the head of 
this chapter, Mr. Fletcher entered upon the 
work of 1869. He had ^'entered the open door," 
and in the name of the Lord went forward 
to whatever might await him of duty or priv- 
ilege in the years to come. As, in addition to 
that specific work that came to him as janitor 
of the church, the incessant watchfulness and 
care for the comfort of the congregation, the 
constant attention to all those matters that would 
make the pubHc services attractive and profitable, 



JANITOR TAYLOR STREET CHURCH. 71 

he retained his relation to his classes as leader and 
performed his work among them with singular ef- 
fectiveness and intelligence, this may be a proper 
place to give some description of the character of 
that work. 

The place of class leader in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church has been hardly second to 
any other in its direct influence on the per- 
sonal experience and character of the church it- 
self. Its theory supposes that only such as 
are themselves well grounded in the Christian 
life shall be appointed to it. Besides this, there 
must needs be a discriminating if not profound 
knowledge of the vital doctrines of the Holy 
Scriptures, especially as set forth in the teachings 
of Methodism in her books of theology and in her 
standard hymnology; the most complete and per- 
fect that is to be found in all the Christian church. 
Then, an essential facility in simple doctrinal state- 
ment and application, with a readiness in calling to 
mind suitable stanzas of a hymn when it can serve 
a useful purpose; a discriminating judgment of 
human nature; kindness coupled with firmness; a 
heart full of love and yet full of fidelity; a soul 
capable of feeUng the burdens and temptations of 



72 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

Others, and an ability to lead those of others to the 
great Burden Bearer and teach them how to "cast 
their cares on Him who careth for them;" all these 
and many more kindred qualities are essential to 
the successful class leader. 

It will easily be seen that this is a combination 
of mental and moral and spiritual and even physi- 
cal qualities that is not easy to find, and when it is 
found it is an inestimable treasure to the church 
that possesses it. It is not too much to say that 
the spiritual results of the work of the preacher in 
the pulpit are largely saved or lost to the church 
by the influence of capable and godly leaders, or 
by the neglect and weakness of incapable and care- 
less ones. Many hearts are prepared for a tender 
and helpful waiting upon the teachings of the pul- 
pit by the more direct and personal teaching of 
the leader before the pulpit speaks, or after it has 
spoken by the careful and loving application of 
the truth heard to the mind and heart of the 
hearer b)^ the leader, whose alert mind and recep- 
tive heart have taken close grip of each truth 
needed by the individual members of his class. 

William Carvosso has been the patron saint of 
the class-room in nearly all the life of Methodism. 



JANITOR TAYLOR-STREET CHURCH. 73 

If a Methodist needs to be told who WiUiam Car- 
vosso was, his ignorance of Methodist lore is too 
dense to be illuminated by such a side reference as 
we are able to make to him in such a work as this. 
If any man has ever been appointed a class leader, 
and has not proceeded at once to famiUarize him- 
self with the doctrines and rules of the church he 
served, and in immediate connection therewith the 
personal lives and official methods of such men as 
Carvosso, that fact alone has doomed him to fail- 
ure, and the souls of those committed to his care 
to injury and loss. No one acquainted with Mr. 
Fletcher could expect for a moment that he 
would not lay hold of all these helps, and also of 
any other that might come to his knowledge. 

There were many things in common in the con- 
ditions, character and work of the two men. Both 
were born in low estate. Both entered upon life 
in humble callings. Both were entirely uneduca- 
ted in their youth. Both learned to read and write 
when considerably advanced in life, and after the 
grace of God had touched and awakened their in- 
tellects to an ambition to do good in the world. 
Both had charge of several classes at the same 
time. Both kept up a wide and continued corres- 



74 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

pondence with the members of their classes. Both 
had great and evenly sustained zeal in their work. 
Both had strong faith. The parallel might be con- 
tinued. Something of this came doubtless from 
the fact that Mr. Fletcher, the younger, was a 
careful student of Carvosso, the elder, not as an 
imitator, but as a disciple, inteUigently compre- 
hending principles and carefully applying them. 

A few extracts from Mr. Fletcher's journal 
touching his class methods and his personal ex- 
periences will give the reader a better knowledge 
of the elements that combined in him to make his 
work a success than a more extended ex parte de- 
scription. Under date of January 24th, 1869, he 
writes: — 

"Sabbath morning. I read our church rules to my class 
this morning. I want them to be well informed in the doc- 
trines and principles of our church. It is a source of much 
regret to me that our people are so ignorant in relation to 
these. I intend, by the blessing of God, not only to build 
my class up in the 'knowledge of the truth,' but also in their 
duties as members of the church." 

What pureness, what trueness, what faithful- 
ness are manifested here! On the very next Sun- 
day, Januay 31st, he makes this record: — 



JANITOR TAYLOR-STREET CHURCH. 75 

"In place of onr regular class meeting this morning I 
had each member of the class select such a portion of one 
of our hymns as would best correspond with their present 
experiences. I had two objects in view in this. One was 
that they might be made more familiar with our hymns, 
and the other that I might vary the order of exercise to the 
greater interest and profit of the members. I wish I could 
get them to study our hymn book more, for I believe that, 
next to the Bible, it is the best booli for us to study. It 
contains such a body of divinity, and such soul-stirring 
praises to God that its greater use would be a great benefit 
to them all. They would then 'sing with the Spirit and 
with the understanding also.' " 

An experienced Christian can readily see the 
skill of "the master workman" displayed in such di- 
versified and ingenious methods of spiritual work. 
He will imagine what an impression would be 
made on other minds when one would quote such 
stanzas as: — 

"Now I have found the ground wherein 
Sure my soul's anchor may remain; 
The wounds of Jesus, for my sin 

Before the world's foundation slain; 
Whose mercy shall unshaken stay 
When heaven and earth are fied away." 

Or this from Charles Wesley: — 



76 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

"Long my imprisoned spirit lay 

Fast bound in sin and nature's night; 
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray; 

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; 
My chains fell off, my heart was free, 
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee. 

And then some weary one sings from Bonar: — 

"I heard the voice of Jesus say: 

'Come unto me and rest; 
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down 

Thy head upon my breast!' 
I came to. Jesus as I was. 

Weary and worn and sad; 
I found in Him a resting place. 

And He hath made me glad." 

And then some one further on in the divine Ufe, 
better acquainted with God than most, repeats as 
the experience of perfect trust: — 

"Thee will I love, my joy, my crown; 

Thee will I love, my Lord, my God; 
Thee will I love, beneath Thy frown 

Or smile. Thy scepter or Thy rod. 
What though my heart and flesh decay? 
Thee shall I love in endless day." 

Now it is a stanza expressive of penitence, now 
of pardon, now of cleansing, of sanctification, now 



JANITOR TAYLOR-STREET CHURCH. 77 

of faith's triumph, now of the hope of heaven. 
Who could go away from such a service unedified 
and unblest? 

Another marked peculiarity of Mr. Fletcher's 
work as class leader was the great interest he took 
in the new members, especially the young people, 
added to his class. Evidencing this is a record he 
makes in his journal under date of March 14th, 
1869. He says: — 

"Sabbath morning. The Lord Jesus has added one more 
new member to my class. This is a dear little boy, Herbert 
Northrup, who has early given his heart to Jesus. O, may 
I have grace to take care of these precious lambs which are 
entrusted to my care. The Lord is blessing my class. 
Many of them are truly hungering and thirsting after right- 
eousness, and I am looking to see them filled." 

Northrup was a name long and greatly honored 
in the Methodism of Portland, and of the entire 
Northwest. Herbert was the eldest son of E. J. 
Northrup, who was converted to God in the meet- 
ings held in Portland by Rev. A. B. Earle, to 
which reference has been previously made. The 
father lived a very devoted Hfe, and, although en- 
gaged in large business enterprises, gave much 
time and means to the direct spiritual work of the 
church. He became the leading layman of the 



78 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

city, was a delegate from the Lay Electoral Con- 
ference of the Oregon Conference to the General 
Conference, and, when in the full course of his 
most useful life, was suddenly killed by an acci- 
dent in his storehouse. He was, and, in a moment, 
''he was not, for God took him." Herbert, the 
young boy of whom Mr. Fletcher speaks above so 
tenderely, lived a few beautiful years after he 
united with the class of Mr. Fletcher, and then 
went to join his translated father in the celestial 
land. Their names have the perfume of ointment 
poured forth in the church in Portland. 

We have already mentioned Mr. Fletcher's habit 
of a close and religious correspondence with mem- 
bers of his classes and others in whom he took a 
special interest, as one of his distinguishing quali- 
ties as a class leader and general Christian worker. 
This extended not only to those who were near, 
but to those far away as well. Wherever he jour- 
neyed, by sea or land, his heart never forgot the 
land of his birth, nor the friends of his early Hfe 
there. His journal often speaks of some of them 
in terms of peculiar tenderness. While he was com- 
municating to them assurances of his recollection 
of them, and often making to some of them remit- 



JANITOE TAYLOn STREET CHURCH. 79 

tances of money, he evidently never forgot their 
spiritual good, but wrote and prayed in constant 
hope that his words might become the instrument 
of their salvation. Nor was his labor in vain, or 
his hope in this regard cut ofiF. An incident illus- 
trating this is given in his journal February 22d, 
1869. He writes of two friends in Ireland: — 

"I received a letter from Eliza Floyd and Margaret Floyd 
which has made my heart glad. I find by it that God has 
seen fit to use me as the instrument in His hand in their 
conversion. O Lord, *my cup runneth over' with joy to 
think that Thou canst convert even in Ireland as well as 
in Oregon, and that in every nation he that feareth Thee 
and worketh righteousness is accepted of Thee.' O may 
the good seed that has been planted in their hearts bring 
forth abundant fruit to the glory of my God. Although I 
am far away from them, my heart is often present with 
them, and they are doubly dear to me now that we are 
united in the bonds of Christian love. O may the riches of 
God's grace be multiplied to them, and may they become 
burning and shining lights in that portion of God's green 
earth. Although I am far away from it I love it still. My 
soul often desires that God in His good providence should 
open the way that I might once more visit them, and there 
make known to them personally the riches of His grace. 
But I will lay myself in His hands, with the assurance 
that, if it is His will, I shall go there, but if it is not, then 
His will, not mine, be done. 

"In all my ways His hand I own." 



^^ WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

The summer of 1869 marked a serious decline in 
the spiritual condition of the church with which 
Mr. Fletcher was connected. It seemed a period 
when mere ''table-serving" and temporalities occu- 
pied the minds of both pastor and people to a very 
alarming extent. Mr. Fletcher was greatly dis- 
tressed over this condition of things, and for a 
time was incHned to beHeve that his work in Port- 
land was done, and God was about to call him 
into some other field; but, though he felt this 
impression for a short time, opening providences 
soon satisfied that there was yet work reserved in 
the counsels of the Master for him to perform here 
and he turned to it with unabated zeal, even when 
so many about him had doubtful and fainting 
hearts. Another class — a class of young boys — 
was put under his care, and he gave it the same 
faithful attention and prayerful instruction that 
marked his relation with all his classes. He was 
also elected a member of the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association of the city, and took an active 
and useful part in all its work. About this time 
there fell into his hands a copy of George Muller's 
"Life of Trust," a work that records the wonderful 
experiences of that man of God in entering on and 



JANITOR TAYLOR-STREET CHURCH. 81 

and carrying forward his great school and orphan- 
age undertakings. The reading of this book was 
a means of great benefit to him, as it has been to 
thousands. From its reading he was led to adopt 
Romans 13-8.: "Owe no man anything, but to 
love one another; for he that loveth another has 
fulfilled the law," as the rule for the remainder of 
his life. At the close of 1869 he makes this remark- 
able record: 

"I have not been absent from my class meeting nor from 
any other meeting of the church a single time during the 
year. I have spent over eleven hours every Sabbath in the 
church attending to the various duties of the sanctuary, 
and notwithstanding all this labor and care and anxiety, 
God's grace has always been sufficient for me. On enter- 
ing upon 1870 it is with the desire in my heart to be more 
faithful, more useful, and more abundant in those labors 
of love. I have set apart Friday of every week for the ser- 
vice of the Lord in any way His providence may direct." 

Any one who has followed carefully the story of 
Mr. Fletcher's life up to this time, must surely 
wonder how he could be more faithful, except in 
the use of the new strength he had been constantly 
gaining in his life of singular consecration, up to 
this hour. 

About this time another class of twenty-four 



82 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

young girls was committed to his care. This class 
had been under the instruction of Mrs. Patterson, 
a most capable and godly woman, whose personal 
influence over Mr. Fletcher himself had been a 
strong factor in the development of his own high 
Christian life. It was no slight mark of the high 
place he had attained in the confidence of the 
church that these places of special responsibihty 
fell to him, not from any desire on his part to ob- 
tain them, but because no one else seemed so well 
fitted to aid the young people forward in the true 
divine life as he. Not only this, the young people 
themselves were delighted to have him as their 
counselor and friend, and under his direction many 
of them were early brought to a clear knowledge 
of their adoption into the family of God. With 
the care of three of the most important classes of 
the church, the diversified and never ceasing du- 
ties of his janitorship, and also his wide correspon- 
dence, it is not strange that at the close of the 
year he felt that his duties pressed heavily upon 
him. Yet he expresses "thankfulness that God 
gives them to him to discharge," and that he ''has 
reason to belive that he blesses him therein." With 
such reflections on his work, and with such resolu- 



JANITOR TAYLOR-STREET CHURCH. 83 

tions for the future, Mr. Fletcher comes to a point 
that marks the beginning of another distinct era 
in the story of his life. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MARRIAGE. 

"We are weaving the thread of our life's webs 

Day by day; 
And its colors are sometimes sombre, 

Sometimes gay; 
For we dye it with every passing thought, 
And by words and deeds is the pattern wrought." 

— Bradt. 

f\^ the 24th day of May, 1871, Mr. Fletcher was 
^-^ united in marriage with Miss Lizzie Brown. 
As some notice will hereafter be given of the re- 
lations of his companion to the larger and most 
useful part of his career, it is only necessary now to 
make such mention of her as seems to be needful 
in connection with the incident of their marriage. 
Mr. Fletclier himself was fully impressed w^ith the 
belief that this marriage was of the Lord's own 
ordering, and he therefore entered upon it in a de- 
vout and tender frame of mind. Miss Brown was 
about his own age, and well calculated to sustain 
and help her husband in the work in which he was 



MARRIAGE. 85 

now engaged, and in that upon which he after- 
wards entered. 

Miss Brown was born in BufiFalo, New York. 
She was left an orphan at an early age, yet in early 
childhood she gave her heart to the Lord, and 
lived a pure Christian life through all the changes 
of her subsequent career. She came to Portland 
about a year before her marriage, and was a close 
attendant on the services of the church. In this 
way she commended herself to the confidence and 
love of the church, and especially of Mr. Fletcher, 
and both accepted it as of the Lord's will that they 
should become one in Christ Jesus. Our readers 
will hear more of her hereafter. 

Mr. Fletcher always took great interest in his 
pastor. In proportion as he was a man devoted to 
God and able to instruct the people in the ''things 
pertaining to life and godliness," he found in Mr. 
Fletcher a signal help in leading the people for- 
ward. But if the pastor chanced to have a worldly 
spirit, or was disposed to compromise truth by 
yielding to doubtful social customs or demands, 
though no factious and contentious opposition 
was made to him, yet he could not be in doubt as 
to the position Mr. Fletcher occupied. He was 



86 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

friendly and gracious with all, but his closest Chris- 
tian intimacies were with those who walked on the 
highest paths of the Christian way. In reading his 
journal, the writer has observed that every one of 
his pastors was welcomed with words of trust and 
hope, even if thereafter he showed his want of the 
best instincts of the spiritual life, and led, or per- 
mitted his people to drift into doubtful ways of 
worldly compliance. In such case, and in these 
things, Mr. Fletcher parted company with him, 
even while he gave his active support in every way 
to the general work of the church. Several in- 
stances of this kind had occured previous to the 
time of which we are now writing, but in none of 
them was there the slightest evidence of disloyalty 
to the church, but constant tokens of the greatest 
fidelity to all her interests and economy. The 
work of the summer of 1871, was not closing pros- 
perously with the church where he had labored so 
long and earnestly, and as conference approached 
he was excedingly anxious in relation to the ap- 
pointment of a pastor for the next year. This did 
not arise out of any question of personal friendship, 
but with a single reference to the spiritual condi- 
tion and progress of the church. 



MARRIAGE. 87 

The annual conference of 1871 was held in Tay- 
lor Street Church,and Bishop Edmund S. Janes 
was its presiding ofificer. Our readers will remem- 
ber that Bishop Janes had traveled in the stage 
coach from Yreka, California, to Oregon, in com- 
pany with Mr. Fletcher in 1863. They recalled the 
incidents of the journey with mutual satisfaction 
as they met here eight years thereafter. When the 
conference closed Bishop Janes announced as the 
pastor for the coming year, Rev. G. W. Izer, who 
was transferred from the Central Pennsylvania 
Conference to the Oregon for this special charge. 
Probably no pastor that the church ever had in- 
fluenced the thought and hope of Mr. Fletcher 
more strongly or more favorably than did Mr. 
Izer. Young, alert, spiritual and intellectual, his 
ministry ^vas full of an attractive and stimulating 
unction that peculiarly attracted the people, and 
was especially helpful to Mr. Fletcher in his per- 
sonal experience, as well as in his relations to the 
work of the Master that lay so near his heart. It is 
with no feeling of surprise that we read in his jour- 
nal at the close of the conference session, 'T look 
for great things from the hand of the Lord 
through him this year.'' At the end of the first 



88 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

month of Mr. Izer's pastorate, the house was filled 
with a very serious congregation; a number had 
been converted, several had professed sanctifica- 
tion, the prayer meetings and class meetings had 
revived and the entire outlook for the church had 
been changed from one of clouds and doubt and 
fear, to one of bright skies and conquering faith, 
and confident courage. No wonder that Mr. 
Fletcher greatly rejoiced, giving glory to God. 

At this period in the life of Mr. Fletcher, we 
note, for the first time, a record of his entering 
upon a work that was eventually to prove the 
great work of his life. What it was will appear if 
we quote a sentence or two from his journal under 
date of September 14th, 1871: 

*'Since Conference I have been distributing tracts among 
the hotels and boarding houses and shops and steamboats, 
and have done some little missionary work in connection 
with it. The Lord blesses me in it, and my prayer is that 
He will continue to make me more useful. I love this work 
of distributing tracts; it gives me such opportunities to 
speak a word for Jesus to the sailors about the ships and 
Inviting them to our meetings." 

About two weeks later he records that: 

"For the two weeks work twenty-four persons have been 
converted and four made perfect in love, and among the 



MARRIAGE. 89 

twenty-four are three sailors belonging to vessels in port 
I trust the Lord has used me as an instrument for the sal- 
vation of these souls, and I look for still greater results yet 
in the salvation of more of them before our meeting 
closes." 

Two weeks later a second record says that fifty- 
two had been converted and six made perfect in 
love, and that among them was another of the 
"sailor boys," the second mate of the English bark 
Bristolian, making three from her and one from 
another ship. He prays that the little leaven that 
has been hid in the heart of these sailor chaps will 
so work that the whole of the ship's company will 
be leavened." 

The early occupation of Mr. Fletcher as a sailor 
even long before his conversion, now began to 
show its ffects in his readiness for the work God 
was preparing for him. He could not have im- 
agined as he was passing through the hard lessons 
of a sailor's life what an influence these lessons 
would have after many years upon his career; and 
certainly those who saw him in his rough garb 
and perilous exposures would never have thought 
that out of these untoward conditions would come 
at last a character so refined and a life so conse- 



90 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

crated. With a new attainment of strength, and 
this leading by Providence into new and promis- 
ing fields of Christian work, Mr. Fletcher closed 
the year 1871. His reflections are so pertinent, 
and express so much of the spirit that was his best 
furnishing for the work of his life, that we give an 
extract from them under date of January 1st, 
1872: 

"The past year has been one rich in mercy to me and my 
companions. I have devoted this year entirely to the ser- 
vice of God in the various duties connected with my work 
in the church. It has been the burden of my prayers to 
God that He would so bless me in the labors of my hands 
that I would be able to devote all my time and little talent 
to Him, and to-day, in looking back over the year that is 
just closed, surely my prayers have been most abundantly 
answered. My Heavenly Father has has not only given me 
a nice home, but one of the best of companions to share it 
with me. We are one in spirit in serving the Lord. In en- 
tering this new year myself and wife have consecrated 
ourselves and all that we possess anew to God, to be used 
as His good providence may direct; and may the grace of 
our Lord Jesus Christ abide with us." 

This character of work continued with Mr. 
Fletcher through 1872. The latter part of the 
year was signalized by a gracious revival of re- 
ligion in the church in Portland, and in the revival 



MARRIAGE. 91 

Mr. Fletcher was in labors most abundant, and his 
soul flamed with purifying fire. Probably Taylor 
Street Church never had a higher and purer re- 
ligious life than at this time. 

Mr. Fletcher's work was extending more and 
more among the sailors. He says of January 1st, 
1873:— 

" I have been greatly blest in my labors among the sail- 
ors in this port. How thankful I am that I have been to 
sea myself in my younger clays, as I can adapt myself so 
readily to their wants. I am so well acQuainted with all 
the "land sharks" and sailor boarding house runners, that 
I am able to warn the sailors of their dangers when on 
shore. I have been very succesful in getting many of them 
to attend mj' Sabbath morning class, and many of them 
have been converted in the class rooms, and have gone to 
sea happy in the Lord. I have realized in the past year 
more than ever before the importance of living a holy life, 
and being fully consecrated to God and His work: as it re- 
moves from me a man-fearing spirit, and gives me that 
liberty in my work that I need so much. My wife is also 
rejoicing in the same blessed experience with me. It makes 
our work so pleasant for us, and our home so happy, and it 
gives us favor with the people so that we can do them 
good." 

During 1873 the shipping entering the Port of 
Portland greatly increased, and so Mr. Fletcher's 
work among the sailors became more and more 



92 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

important. A much larger number than ever 
were induced by him to attend church and class 
meeting, where he found it easy to teach them, 
and lead them into a Christian life. So rapidly did 
this work grow under the faithful hand of Mr. 
Fletcher that on January 1st, 1874, we find him 
expressing the expectation of seeing at no distant 
day "a Seaman's Chaplain and Bethel for the men 
of the sea." 



CHAPTER VII. 

CRUSADERS. 

Not many lives, but only one have we 

Our only one; 
How sacred should that one life ever be! 

That narrow span, 
Day after day, filled up with blessed toil, 
Hour after hour still bringing us new toil. 

— Bonar. 

EARLY in 1874 there occurred in the moral 
and religious history of the city of Portland 
a series of incidents with which Mr. Fletcher and 
his wife were actively identified, that should have 
some notice in this work. They grew out of the 
organization and work of "The Woman's Temper- 
ance Prayer League." 

The saloon power had become so formidable in 
the city, and all the crimes that are fostered and 
sustained by that power so prevalent, that a num- 
ber of the Godly women of the city, of various de- 
nominations, banded themselves together for a 



94 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

''crusade" against it. There were perhaps forty in 
all who enrolled themselves in the band; women 
who led the active reUgious work of the several 
city churches, and whose hearts were stirred within 
them when they saw the city so wholly given up to 
the ravages of intemperance and all its attendant 
crimes. They resolved to go upon the streets, and 
even into the saloons, and by songs and prayer and 
personal appeals, try to stay the tide of destruc- 
tion. There were but thirteen of them at the first 
enrolment, and the second name on the list was 
''Lizzie Fletcher." They had a very active and 
and even enthusiastic support from Rev. G. W. 
Izer, pastor of the First M. E. Church; Rev. G. H. 
Atkinson, pastor of the First Congregational 
Church, and Rev. Mr. Medbury, of the First Bap- 
tist Church. The other pastors of the city gave 
the movement only a reluctant support. Their 
work was first confined to earnest prayer in the 
meetings of the League and at home, but before 
long they felt it their duty to go upon the streets 
and carry the battle of prayer to the very gates of 
the saloons. It was the veritable march of the 
"Crusaders" when these godly women went forth 
out of the front door of old Taylor Street Church, 



CRUSADERS. 95 

led by the unseen ''Captain of their Salvation" 
against the giant foe of all good on the crowded 
streets of the city, not knowing to what insults and 
oppositions they went. Martyrdom itself could 
not be more to be dreaded. Foul insults of low 
and villainous speech were heaped upon them from 
the habitues of the saloons. Horsewhips were plied 
upon their backs. Streams of water from the hose 
pipes were turned over them, but none of these 
things moved them. They had hold of God, and 
nothing seemed able to make them unloose their 
grip. They reviled not again. They replied to 
angry oaths with sweet-voiced songs and earnest 
prayer. They remembered the Master's code of 
Christian warfare, ''bless them that curse you, and 
pray for them that despitefully use you and perse- 
cute you." This they literally did. No braver, no- 
bler Christian spirit ever was exhibited. 

So deep was the impression made on the public 
mind of Portland by the heroic and devoted as 
well as determined course of these noble women — 
for they were noble in every sense — that the saloon 
forces saw that their cause was doomed to fall un- 
less, in some way, the efforts of these women could 
be stopped. Five of the women were arrested for 



96 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

praying on the street, under the charge of disor- 
derly and riotous conduct. Among these was Mrs. 
Fletcher. The city magistrate spent two days in 
the mockery of a trial, and then they were found 
''guilty" and fined ''$5.00 each or one day in pris- 
on." They refused to pay the fine, choosing, prop- 
erly, to endure the imprisonment rather than in 
any way to recognize the semblance of justice in 
the action of the court, and accordingly they were 
locked up in the city prison. Such is the mercy 
and justice that wrong gives to right when right 
makes even the insurrection of prayer against 
wrong. As though prisons could manacle prayer, 
or iron walls defeat the power of God to finally 
avenge His people! 

At evening of the day of their incarceration Mr. 
Fletcher visited the prison where they were con- 
fined, to observe their spirit, and especially to see 
if his wife needed anything for her comfort during 
the night. He says: 

"I shall never forget the impression that was made on my 
mind while there with her in prison for about half an hour 
before she was locked up for the night. She was very 
happy in the Lord; not only willing to spend one night in 
prison, but also to suffer death, if need be, for the cause 



CRUSADERS. 97 

of Christ. All the ladies that were with her in prison 
would have been willing to do the same." 

How strange the senseless enthusiasm of sin for 
its own cause! How strange that eighteen cen- 
turies have not sufficed to teach iniquity that there 
is no real refuge for it in law; that its victories are 
always its defeat, and its crowns of thorns on the 
brow of right always change to coronets of glory. 

Immediately after these ladies were released from 
their imprisonment they and their coadjutors of 
the praying band continued their work on the 
streets and in the saloons until June, but even be- 
sotted crime did not attempt to stay their proceed- 
ings by prosecutions or limit the freedom of prayer 
by prison walls. 

Soon after the close of this active "Crusade," the 
pastoral term of Rev. G. W. Izer closed at Taylor 
Street Church, and he was transferred to the East. 
His preaching and pastoral labor had proved a 
great mental and spiritual help to Mr. Fletcher, 
and it was with sincere regret that he bade him 
''good-bye" as he retired. Nor had Mr. Izer any 
less cause to feel gratitude to Mr. Fletcher for the 
full, constant and efficient support received from 
him. In the cheering words, unpretending kind- 



98 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

ness and helpful attentions given him by the latter 
at all times and under all circumstances not a little 
of the good wrought by Mr. Izer in Portland had 
its origin and support. 

The years 1875 and 1876 were, with Mr. Fletch- 
er, in the main incidents of his life, like those that 
had preceeded them. There was no lessening, but 
rather an increase of his responsibility and work. 
The number of ships that entered the port contin- 
ued to increase, and with that his work among the 
sailors enlarged. More of them attended his 
classes and the general services of the church than 
ever before. Evidently the seed that Mr. Fletcher 
almost alone had sown in the hearts of ''the men of 
the sea," who had visited the port was beginning 
to bear its ripened fruit all over the world. 

Many incidents of thrilling interest occurred in 
connection with his work; incidents that made 
his name and work familiar to seafaring men every- 
where. At one time a sailor was converted in one 
of his meetings in Taylor Street Church. The 
next morning Mr. Fletcher met him and inquired 
if he had written the good news of his conversion 
to his wife in Liverpool. The sailor replied, "No; 
I could not keep her waiting for two weeks to 



CRUSADERS. 99 

know what God had done for me, but I have sent 
a cablegram this morning.'' So the good work of 
this true friend of the seamen was becoming known 
in every port. It may be truly said that, up to this 
time, very little had been done in Portland for the 
salvation of the sailors that was not done directly 
through the instrumentality of Mr. Fletcher. Of 
the increase of this great work we shall see more 
hereafter. 

As we pass down the way in the story of Mr. 
Fletcher's Hfe, it seems needful that we illustrate 
the influence that continually aided in the develop- 
ment of his life by some references from the men 
and women with whom he wrought in the inti- 
macies of Christian friendship. Few men have had 
their friendships pitched on a higher key, and he 
had the faculty of absorbing good out of them all. 
His own sincerity of word and deed was so obvious 
that he needed no other credentials to open his 
way to the trust and confidence of others. 

Among those who, for years, was most closely 
connected with him in his church work, and per- 
haps more intimately connected with the develop- 
ment of his own spiritual life, was Mr. George Ab- 
ernethy. His death, which occurred on the 2d 



100 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

day of May, 1877, brought to the whole church 
sadness, and especially to the heart of Mr. Fletcher. 
When we study the character and career of Mr. 
Abernethy, and then consider how intimately 
these two men were associated in the work of the 
church in Portland for so many years, we shall un- 
derstand this fact better. 

Mr. Abernethy was a thoroughly trained and 
cultivated Christian gentleman. Few finer speci- 
mens of that beautiful product of the Christian civ- 
ilization of America have been seen among us. He 
was eminent in all the relations of a most enter- 
prising and useful life. After an early discipline 
and training in business and in Christian life in the 
city of New York, under such eminent teachers as 
Nathan Bangs, Samuel Merwin and their com- 
peers and coadjutors, he was chosen by the Mis- 
sionary Board of the M. E. Church to be put in 
charge of the financial inerests of its missions in 
Oregon in 1839, and came to this coast in the 
capacity of Missionary Steward. Here he served 
faithfully in that capacity as long as such an officer 
was needed, or until 1846, when he entered busi- 
ness for himself, and became the best known of the 
early merchants of Oregon. He was chosen as 



CRUSADERS. 101 

Governor of the Territory under the Provisional 
Government, and re-elected to the same place, 
serving as such until the general government ex- 
tended its jurisdiction over Oregon in 1848. He 
led the laity of Methodism in all good works for 
many years; and was the first lay delegate to the 
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church from the Pacific Coast. When he died, 
not only did the church here feel the shock of a 
great loss, but the entire State of which he had 
been one of the most influential and discreet foun- 
ders, paid its tribute of praise and gratitude at his 
tomb. With him as a brother beloved, Mr. Fletch- 
er sustained a most intimate relation, and without 
doubt drew from his richly stored mind and ripe 
Christian experience much that was helpful to his 
own life and work. To have held such relations to 
such a man for so long a time was surely pledge 
enough of the personal character and religious 
worth of Mr. Fletcher. 

For nine years Mr. Fletcher had served the 
church in the relations which have been traced in 
the preceeding pages. At the close of the ninth 
year he was granted a leave of absence for four 
weeks, for a visit to California. When this was 



102 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

done he makes in the journal the following remark- 
able statement regarding these years: 

"I have never been absent from my class for one meet- 
ing since I came to this Church, nor from any of the church 
services. Since I became its sexton in 1868 to the present 
time, I have been enabled by the blessing of God to attend 
to all my various duties, having the best of health, and 
above all, the favor of God in my work. I believe that the 
Lord has appointed me to this work. When I took charge 
of the church as its sexton, I felt fully convinced in my 
own mind that this was the work which the Lord had for 
me to do, and now, as I look back, I can truly say that I 
was not disappointed. It may be my life work, so far as I 
know. The Lord's will not mine be done. I want to be 
where the Lord thinks best." 

Such was the record Mr. Fletcher had made in 
these nine years, and such the spirit he had borne 
through them all. If it could but enter into 
the lives of all God's people what wonders 
of redemption would be wrought in the world! 
God's call was never unheard. Everything 
must wait for God's voice. That was the 
only determining factor of duty. Inclination 
was nothing — only God's will. Steadily as 
time moved onward he moved on and out to do 
God's will. And everything was done in love. 
Strength after strength was attained through duty 



CRUSADERS. 103 

done. All strength was used. He never frustrated 
the grace of God; never consumed it on his own 
desires. x\nd so he came to a period and a fact in 
his work that marked the opening of a new era to 
him, and those who had been a chief object of his 
solicitude for many years, ''the men of the sea." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

WORK WIDENING. 

Wait cheerily, then, O mariners, 

For daylight and for land; 
The breath of God is in your sail^ 

Your rudder is His hand. 

Sail on, sail on, deep freighted 

With blessings and with hopes; 
The saints of old with shadowy hands 

Are pulling at your ropes. 

Behind ye holy martyrs 

Uplift the palm and crown; 
Before ye unborn ages send 

Their benedictions down. 

Sail on! the morning cometh, 

The port ye yet shall win; 
And all the bells of God shall ring 

The good ship bravely in! 

— Whittier. 

WE have now come to the opening of a 
work in the Ufe of Mr. Fletcher for 
which, it seems to us, all that preceeded it was but 



WORK WIDENING. 105 

a preparation. When we saw him a sailor on the 
deep, tossed by the v/aves and driven by the winds 
of all the seas, or stranded on many shores of many 
lands, he seemed but a sailor, destined, in all sure 
probability, to continue his adventurous voyages 
until, in some stormiest day, he should earn a 
sailors' heroic burial in the deep bed of the sea 
with the unnamed thousands of those, to all ap- 
pearances like him, who have thus sailed and thus 
sunk into the unfathomed depths. But they were 
not like him, though they thus seemed. God had 
more for him than for them because he had more 
for God than they. When we saw him a miner, 
with pick and shovel bending over the rocky pits, 
or digging in the deep gulches of the mountains 
of California, or daring the granite fastnesses of 
Idaho for gold, he seemed only a miner; likely to 
beat his life out against the iron walls of the mines 
or lose it out of sight of men with the hundreds of 
thousands the engulfing mines have swallowed 
up forever. He seemed like them — they like him. 
But God had more for him than for them, because 
he had more for God than they. When we saw him 
in the ordinary pursuits of a laborer on the fir-clad 
hills of Oregon, or in the streets of the city, he 



106 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

seemed but the ordinary laborer, fated to the weary- 
round of daily and nightly toil for bread, — only for 
bread — until that weary round ended in an un- 
marked grave; where ends the bootless struggle 
of more than half of the human race. But God had 
more for him than for them, because he had more 
for God than they. That more was a purpose; a 
looking forward, a making the most and the best 
of to-day as all he had, remembering that to-mor- 
row was God's, and that he could only be ready 
for God's to-morrow by rightly using his own to- 
day. Thus he made the sailor's voyages and the 
miner's toil preparations for the greater, higher to- 
morrows that* followed on his lower yesterdays. 

The era in his life to which Mr. Fletcher had 
been thus conducted by God's gracious providence 
he had, in a divine way, foreseen and expected, and 
had been doing much to create. It was the for- 
mal and public inauguration of Christian work 
among "the men of the sea," who, in the courses of 
trade or the pursuits of adventure, were finding 
their way into the ports of Oregon, and especially 
into Portland, in great numbers. Our story of his 
life has repeatedly mentioned his personal atten- 
tion to them and his earnest solicitation for their 



WORK WIDENING. 107 

salvation. These seemed, as we recorded them, 
but casual incidents, quite aside from the main pur- 
pose and interest of his life, while, in reality, they 
were chief factors in the make-up of that life. He 
was marking out the most important and far- 
reaching labors of his whole history. The people 
of Portland, among whom he had gone so long, 
and to whom he was so well known, did not un- 
derstand that his quiet and unostentatious visits 
to the wharves and the decks of the vessels lying 
at them; to the sailor's boarding houses, and to 
all the resorts where the sailor boys were enticed 
to their ruin, with his bundles of tracts in his hands, 
which he distributed as leaves of the tree of life to 
all, were putting in action a train of influences that 
meant a world-wide evangelization and would 
make Mr. Fletcher himself one of the most widely 
known of thejreUgious workers of the coast. But 
so it was. It was, as ever, God taking care of His 
own, and taking pains that His watchmen did not 
wake in vain. 

It is probable that the modern church has not 
begun to appreciate the evangelistic value of such 
work among the sailors; even if she has appre- 
ciated the sailor himself as a man. A converted 



108 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

sailor is a world-going missionary. No pent-up 
village or narrow country neighborhood confines 
his influence. From port to port, from country to 
country, from capital to capital, he is borne by the 
free winds of the sea. He knows all continents and 
all islands. He is a citizen of the world. He be- 
longs to the demorcracy of humanity. He is God's 
free evangel; heaven's roving messenger of truth 
and love to every land and every clime. Thus the 
winds waft His story. Thus the waters roll it. 
Every ship that bears him becomes ''the old ship 
of Zion,'' freighted with salvation and sailing to 
all ports. 'The breath of God is in her sails, her 
rudder is His hands," as she sails on freighted with 
hope and salvation for the world. 

Portland had grown to be such a seaport and to 
command such a commerce with foreign nations 
as awakened its great Christian merchants to the 
need of organizing a Bethel Home" and a "Mar- 
iner's Church" for the benefit of the hundreds of 
sea-faring men constantly in the city. According- 
ly, on November 4th, 1877, union services, under 
the auspices of the leading churches of the city, 
were held in Taylor Street M. E. Church, for the 
purpose of making such an organization. Rev. R. 



WORK WIDENING. 109 

S. Stubbs, a very able and devoted as well as ex- 
perienced minister, had been appointed by 'The 
American Seaman's Friend Society," of New York, 
Chaplain for the port of Portland. Mr. Stubbs was 
present, and his evident adaptation to so great a 
work stirred the people to enthusiasm. Mr. Stubbs 
had been a sailor for many years, and had risen to 
the command of vessels, and, of course, under- 
stood the needs of sailors, and well knew how to 
provide for their supply. The meeting completed 
plans for work, raised over |5,000 for its com- 
mencement, and had assurances from the best 
sources of further aid as it would be required in the 
progress of the work. These facts greatly encour- 
aged Mr. Fletcher in the hope that his ruling de- 
sire would have a larger fulfillment in the salvation 
of his beloved ''men of the sea." 

At this time one of the most eminent of pulpit 
orators of his day. Doctor Guard, visited Portland, 
delivering two lectures and one sermon. They 
were greatly appreciated by all, and especially by 
Mr. Fletcher. By a happy incident he introduced 
a friend of his, Mr. John Wilson, a leading mer- 
chant of the city to the Doctor, who immediately 
recognized him as one of the teachers of his early 



110 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

boyhood, and greeted him with most loving re- 
membrances. 

Under date of January 1st, 1879, Mr. Fletcher 
writes: — 

"There is a most remarkable work of grace now going 
on among the seamen in this port. Chaplain Stubbs is 
working faithfully on board the ships in port. My wife 
and myself have attended many of the night meetings on 
some of the ships during the last five weeks. I have not 
seen such a revival since I came to Portland as is now go- 
ing on among the seamen. I think there must have been 
about forty seamen converted up to the present time. Truly, 
the little leaven that has been working for the last few 
years is now showing its power. I hope it will not stop 
until the crew of every ship in port shall be leavened of 
righteousness." 

With the added work that came to Mr. Fletcher 
in the organization of the Seaman's Friend Society 
in Portland, there was little diminution of his work 
in the church itself as janitor and class leader. At 
the same time his reading and studying of the best 
class of Christian works increased. His journal 
often speaks of them with most appreciative lan- 
guage, especially of such as touched the practical 
and experimental sides of Christian life. For those 
that had tendencies opposite to the purest and 



WOEK WIDENING. Ill 

highest experience he had no place. One, for 
which he had paid three dollars, under a mistaken 
idea of its character, he consigned to the flames, 
"so that it could do no harm." Still providence 
seemed directing him toward a wider opportunity 
for usefulness to his beloved "sailor boys," as the 
very best field for the use of his mature Christian 
powers and experience. Making up his mind after 
mature deliberation and prayer that the Lord had 
other work for him to do, in August, 1879, he re- 
signed his place as janitor of Taylor Street Church. 
Of so much public interest was the event that the 
Pacific Christian Advocate, whose editor, Rev. 
Dr. Dillon, was at that time serving as pastor of 
the church Mr. Fletcher had so long served, gave 
this appreciative notice of it: — 

"Brother Fletcher has been a fixture in the janitorship of 
Taylor-street church for ten years. If ever faithful and de- 
voted labor was cheerfully and well performed it has been 
done by him ; for all these years promptly at the time, with- 
out a failure, he has rung the bell for all the gatherings 
of the church, has had the church ready for occupancy, 
dusted, cleaned, ventilated and warmed: often in very cold 
weather sleeping at the church Saturday nights so as to 
start the fires in the furnace very early in the morning. 
Not only this, during all this time he has been present 
every Sunday morning at the 9 o'clock class of which he 



112 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

is leader. But he is gone, and we fear "we ne'er shall see 
his like again." We are only too glad to have him with us 
yet in his pew, and in the class and prayer meeting, where 
he will still be found upon every opportunity that he can 
avail himself of." 

These words of his pastor were but an indication 
of the place Mr. Fletcher had won in the hearts of 
all the church and congregation, the largest in 
Portland. The care and punctuality with which he 
had attended to his duties in Taylor Street Church 
for so many years had attracted the attention of 
the directors of the Portland High School, and 
they sought his services in the like office in that in- 
stitution. He accepted their proposition, as of the 
Lord. His work threw him into close association 
with hundreds of young people, and a very culti- 
vated body of teachers, with all of whom he soon 
became a favorite. His genial disposition, quiet 
and obHging manner, and his careful consideration 
of the comfort of all and the happiness of each not 
only secured their confidence but won their affec- 
tion, and he held their full esteem for all the years 
that he served in that capacity. 

With him one of the chief reasons for choosing 
this position was that it gave him the week day 



WORK WIDENING. 113 

evenings and all of the Sabbath to pursue his work 
among the seamen. More and more his heart was 
drawn to this, and more clearly God's providence 
was opening it to him. With him opportunity was 
duty, and a chance to do was always earnestly im- 
proved. Accordingly he had no sooner entered his 
new field than we find him drawing nearer to ''the 
men of the sea.'' Within two months of the time 
he began his work in the school he makes this 
characteristic entry in his journal: 

Nov. 9tli— I got Dr. Nelson to consent to lead my morn- 
ing class for the next three months so that I could have 
more time for work among the sailors on Sabbath morning. 
I visited four ships this morning, and distributed one hun- 
dred pages of tracts among the men forward. I also got 
five of the men to accompany me to church. O, may the 
Lord bless my work among these men of the sea. 

Nov. 16— Sabbath morning. I had a good time in my 
visiting the ships, giving the tracts to the men, and in 
speaking to them of Jesus, who is always the sailor's 
friend. I told them his very first disciples were sailors, 
and that of all men sailors should be first to serve him. 
As I had spoken to the crew of one of the ships somewhat 
freely, I asked them how many of them would come with 
me to the church that morning to hear His word preached 
for themselves. Five of them came with me. 

Nov. 23.— Only time to visit one ship this morning. After 
speaking to the men forward and distributing some tracts, 



114 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

I went aft and spoke to tlie oflScers, gave them some tracts, 
and got the first and second officers to accompany me to 
the church. 

This character of hand to hand and heart to 
heart work was pursued by Mr. Fletcher with the 
faithfulness and zeal of an apostle. Nearly every 
Sabbath morning he would be seen coming into 
Taylor Street Church with a company of "sailor 
boys'' dressed in the garb of the sea, conducting 
them to eligible seats, sitting with them, watching 
intently the effect of the word upon them, ready to 
take advantage of all influences and impressions 
to lead them to Jesus. 

In closing up his record for the year 1879 he 
gives — 

A VISION OF THE BIBLE. 

By a Seafaring Man. 

"As I lay musing a vision passed before me of a noble 
ship. She was built in New Jerusalem, and her builder 
and maker was God. Her timbers were of the strong oaks 
of Zion, her masts of the tree of Calvary, and her rigging 
of the cords of love. Her sails were the doctrines of sal- 
vation, her cable a three-fold cord of faith, hope and char- 
ity, which could not be easily broken. Her helm glittered 
like the star of prophecy, her anchor was of gold from Im- 
manuel's Land; her crest was the emblem of righteousness 



WORK WIDENING. 115 

and her name was "The Word of God." From stem to 
stern, from keel to deck she was a goodly ship. Her deck 
was a broad platform on which Christians of all denomina- 
tions might stand. Her guns thundered forth the terrors of 
the law, but her mission was emphatically peace. Her 
weapons were not carnal but mighty through God to the 
pulling down of strongholds. Her painting was beauty; 
she was streaked with light and sprinkled with blood. Her 
crew were the Apostles and Prophets, her passengers true 
believers, her captain the Prince of Peace. Her cargo was 
Truth, and her broad oanner bore the inscription "Glory 
to God in the Highest: Peace on earth, good will to men." 
She was sailing over a tempestuous sea. The billows of 
error drove furiouly against her bows, but her bulwarks 
were impregnable. She sailed from the port of heaven and 
her destination was to all the habitable parts of the earth, 
and her mission to the ends of it. The nations hailed her 
approach with joy. She scattered blessings in her course, 
and returned homeward bound freighted with living souls 
and cast her anchor in the haven of life under the throne 
of God and of the Lamb." 

With this 'Vision" Mr. Fletcher closes his record 
of the year 1879. During it his words and his life 
among the seamen had brought help and encour- 
agement to many a burdened heart, and hope to 
many a despairing breast. His cheerful presence, 
his Hght-like smile always stirred to better 
thoughts and higher ambitions all those with 



116 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

whom he mingled, and the memory of them sailed 
in the minds of hundreds of sailors on every sea. 
Whenever the sailor's thoughts would turn toward 
Portland, "Father Fletcher," was in his mind's eye; 
and to very many of them already it was his tender 
countenance, his vigilant guardianship, his Chris- 
tian counsel awaiting him on the Portland docks 
that constituted the strongest desire to again re- 
turn to rest for a little on the peaceful bosom of 
the Oregon port. 



CHAPTER IX. 

BROADENING LIFE. 

Through seas more vast than these of earth, 

Blown straight by heavenly wind, 
They sail with freight of precious worth, 

These merchantmen of mind. 

In alien zones, through sun and cloud, 

With varied cargoes fraught. 
What intercourse and traffic crowd 

The argosies of thought. 

O, happy they who walk the strand 

Whereon those billows roll. 
Whose ports, by right divine, command 

The commerce of the soul." 

—Clarence Urmy. 

TT^ ROM the closing date of the last chapter for 
■^ fi^e years Mr. Fletcher continued the iden- 
tical character of work described there. He had 
charge of one of the most important classes of Tay- 
lor Street Church, and led its members forward in 
the cultivation of the gi'aces of the spirit with the 



118 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

same care and success as attended his work among 
the seamen. iMembers committeed to his care by 
the successive pastors of the church under whom 
he served, were never neglected or forgotten, and 
very few, if, indeed, any of those put under his 
guidance ever strayed from the ways of well doing. 
"By their fruits ye shall know them/' is an eternal 
principle of judgment as to character and life. 
Judged by this test Mr. Fletcher's life had rare per- 
fection. Its influence over others was always, even 
uniquely, pure. It had in it a living principle or 
germ of growth, and so it spread its fructifying 
sap through every fibre and vesicle of the souls it 
touched. Souls born into the Kingdom by his 
fatherhood carried a vigorous life in them from the 
very hour of their birth. Parenthood germinally 
conditions sonship, spiritually as well as physically. 
To be well begotten and well bred is to inherit 
character and quality and power. "Blood will 
tell." By the appHcation of these principles to the 
life of converts the character of those by whom 
they were begotten in the Gospel is clearly defined. 
In the case of those among whom Mr. Fletcher's 
work was mostly done during this time there was 
need of a vigorous inborn life to carry them 



BROADENING LIFE. lid 

through the comparatively stormy conditions of 
their early Christian life. Out on the wild seas, al- 
most before they have lived a single day in the 
consciousness of their new life of faith, visiting 
distant ports, surrounded by rolHcking, roaring 
mobs of sin-intoxicated men; mocked at, ridiculed, 
opposed — if the life in them was not strong and 
forceful at the very beginning it were no great 
wonder if they did not endure. For these and 
other reasons which will appear hereafter, we see 
the uniqueness of the work of Mr. Fletcher, as well 
as the exalted qualities of the spiritual nature that 
he put into it. He so impressed himself and his 
own spiritual life upon those with whom and for 
whom he labored that, as a presence invisible to 
ofhers, and yet visible to them, he walked the 
streets of the city, rode on the waves of the sea, 
sat in the pews in the church, joined in the songs 
of the sanctuary with those children of his beget- 
ting and love wherever they were. In this respect, 
in a finite way and with a few, he was with them 
to the end of the world, as Christ in an infinite 
way, and with all that knew him, pledged that he 
would be ''always." 

It is in this way that good Hves are perpetuated; 



120 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

given an immortality outside of themselves. One 
said ''the evil that men do lives after them, but the 
good is often interred with their bones.'' This say- 
ing can hardly be accepted in its broadest sense. 
It is because good once done does not die, but 
''lives" after he who did it has gone back to dust, 
that good makes any gain over evil. "The eternal 
years of God" belong to good and truth, while 
"the death that never dies" is the doom of evil and 
falsehood. This is the vital motive to goodness of 
action and purity of life. "The righteous shall be 
in everlasting remembrance, but the memory of 
the wicked shall rot." So the memory of this 
friend and servant of the humblest occupant of the 
forecastle on the poorest ship that came to the 
port where he labored so long and faithfully will be 
green with verdure of immortality when the very 
name of the proudest captain that ever sailed the 
seas, whose life was evil and wicked, shall rot out 
of all mention by men or angels. God keeps the 
records of the book of lives, and He never forgets. 
"Father Taylor" once described the career of a 
young man who came from the country to the city, 
who fell into one temptation after another till he 
became a degraded castaway. When he seemed 



BROADENING LIFE. 121 

to have reached the lowest depth of horror, Father 
Taylor, with a look and tone that chilled the very 
marrow of the bones of those that heard him, 
cried: "Hush! Shut the windows of Heaven. 
He's cursing his mother!" He would, if possible, 
keep the horrid degradation of this boy, who had 
thus desecrated the holiest name on earth and thus 
defiled himself, from the eye of the recording angel. 
So goodness does not seek to perpetuate the mem- 
ory of wickedness, but rather to blot it out. But 
it does seek to perpetuate, to keep alive, the re- 
membrances of the righteous. 

In connection with his work among the seamen 
and also in the church during the five years from 
1879 to the opening of 1886, Mr. Fletcher contin- 
ued as janitor of the Portland High School, where 
several hundred of the brightest young people in 
the city shared his attentions and enjoyed his 
friendship. He won their confidence and so they be- 
came his friends, and in no small measure their love 
of him widened all his subsequent opportunity for 
doing good, and in no slight degree accounts for 
the very remarkable hold he secured on the confi- 
dence of the best citizens of Portland. But the 
time was nearing for which providence had been 



122 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

preparing him, when he was to withdraw from 
some of the fields in which he had wrought so long, 
and devote all his time to the benefit of the sea- 
men. 

About the first of January, 1886, Chaplain R. S. 
Stubbs was transferred by the Seaman's Friend 
Society from the charge of the Bethel work in 
Portland to the superintendence of the work of 
that society on Puget Sound. On his retirement 
Mr. Fletcher was left in charge of that work in 
Portland. This brought him to the conclusion to 
which providence had long been pointing, that this 
was to be his one field of ultimate toil. Accord- 
ingly we find this entry in his journal at this time: 

Jan. 1,— I intend, when my school year closes, if it be the 
Lord's will, to enter entirely upon the Bethel and ship work 
in behalf of the "men of the sea," and make it my life- 
work, and try to save these dear men in Jesus; for I know 
by sad experience of my own how terrible are their beset- 
ments, while they are in port. 

Jan, 3.— This Sabbath I visited the ship Carmarthen 
Castle and met with the steward who was converted when 
he was here eight years ago in the ship Robert Lee, and 
also four more converted men in the ship with him. I had 
a most precious season with them. 

Jan. 21.— I was visiting some of the ships this morning 
down at the Mersey docks. The sailors had just come on 



BROADENING LIFE. 123 

board half drunk, as they had been on a spree all night, 
and were quarreling with each other, as I was standing on 
the dock debating in my mind whether I should go on 
board just at that time or not, I asked the Lord what I 
had best do. The blessed Holy Spirit applied the words to 
my heart that God spoke to Moses: "Now, therefore, go, 
and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou 
Shalt say." Exodus iv., 12. I said, "It is enough. Lord," and 
I just stepped aboard and met the captain on the poop. 
After shaking hands with him, he said, "See, there is a 
specimen of our British sailors," pointing to his men. I 
told him tnat his men would be all right but for the cursed 
whiskey that was in them; that that was the cause of all 
the trouble with his men. I told him that I would just step 
down into the waist of the ship and see what I could do to 
break up the row among them. He said: "You had better 
not go among them," but I said: "I have no fears at all"; 
so I stepped down to where they were wrangling. As one 
of them saw me coming towards them he came to meet me. 
I took him by the hand and said to him: i am sorry to see 
you men at loggerheads this morning. But I can sympa- 
thize with you for I have been in the same way more than 
once myself, and I know just how you feel." Just then 
another of them came to hear what I was saying, another 
one went and spoke to another, and one or two went for- 
ward, so the whole thing broke up, and there was no fight. 
I then went forward and said: "Men, I am sorry to see 
you in the way you are this morning, but I am thankful 
you are not in the lock-up, but on board of your own ship." 
I talked a little while with them, gave them some reading 
and left them. I then went aft and said to the captain, 



124 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

"Blessed are the peacemakers." "Well," said he, "you had 
more courage than I have to go down among those fel- 
lows in the condition they were in." I then left him and 
went on board the ship Dovenby, and had a very profitable 
conversation with Captain Steele and his wife. So ended 
my morning's work on the ships." 

Thus, Sunday by Sunday, year following year, 
did Mr. Fletcher find his way from deck to deck 
with his messages of ''peace" and his invitations to 
Christ to officer and sailor alike. Sincerely hum- 
ble, yet never shrinking from duty, full of a calm 
courage, yet never boasting of his bravery, this 
man of God constantly went forth to serve God by 
helping and saving lost humanity. Is there any 
other way of serving Him? 

In April of this year Mr. Fletcher was put in 
charge of the Bethel work by the Portland Sea- 
man's Friend Society, at its annual meeting. Since 
the removal of Chaplain Stubbs there had been no 
preaching in the Bethel, and Mr. Fletcher entered 
upon that field under discouraging conditions. In 
his usual way, however, he gave himself into God's 
hands for guidance and help in the broader field 
into which His providence had brought him, seek- 
ing the "Blessed Spirit's" aid in all he did. It 
seemed a propitious fact that this enlarged respon- 



BROADENING LIFE. 125 

sibility came to him when he was amidst the ten- 
der memories attending the 26th anniversary of his 
own conversion, and the 19th anniversary of his 
experience of perfect love. It is not strange that 
he says, in referring to this fact, as Isaiah said so 
long before him, ''O Lord, I will praise Thee, for 
though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is 
turned away and thou comfortest me. Behold, 
God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid, 
for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song ; 
He also is become my salvation." 

With this evident call to the consecration of all 
his time and powers to the work of the seamen 
came the necessary duty of surrendering other 
work, which, however important in itself, and how- 
ever pleasant to him it might be, would neverthe- 
less occupy a large portion of his time. So in the 
early summer he surrendered his place in connec- 
tion with the High School of the city, and, as it 
will give the reader a clear insight into his mo- 
tives of life and rules of conduct in all that he was 
oi did, his reflections on the occasion are given. 

Under date of July 1st, 1886, he says:— 

"I have resigned my positon as janitor of Park-street 
High School, AYhich I have held for the last seven years, to 



126 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

enter more fully upon the Bethel and ship work. "When I 
entered upon my school work seven years ago, I entered 
it as the Lord's work, and looking back now I can truly say 
it was of the Lord's appointment. I have been blessed both 
in spiritual and temporal things. The Lord has given me 
favor with both teachers and pupils, and also with the 
directors. I have never had an unkind word spoken to me 
during these seven years by any one connected with the 
school. I always kept the Lord and His work before me, 
and as I went in and out before them from day to day, I 
tried to set before them the example of a godly life both 
by my walk and conversation. O, I have enjoyed so many 
precious prayers for my teachers and pupils. I always felt 
it was the Lord's work I was doing, and now, as I give up 
my stewardship to Him who gave it to me, I ask Him to 
bless the seed that I have tried to sow in the hearts of 
these dear teachers and children during my seven years 
work with them. 

"When I entered my school work, I received a salary of 
fifty-five dollars a mouth. The second year they gave me 
sixty, the third year seventy, and after that seventy-five 
dollars, so I can say the Lord has greatly blessed me in the 
labor of my hands. It seemed a great grief to the teach- 
ers and children that I should leave them. 

"I had been enabled to build me a new two-story house on 
my lot on which I live, costing me $2,400, and is now bring- 
ing me $36 per month rent, and have left a balance of $800 
in my bank account up to date. I can surely say that 
"goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my 
life.' The Lord has brought me now to the place I have 
been working up to, so that I could give myself entirely to 
the work of the Bethel and the ships." 



BROADENING LIFE. 127 

In this extract the reader will be able to see 
some of the elements of character that made the 
life of Mr. Fletcher such an eminently useful one 
in the sphere in which he moved. StabiUty of 
purpose, patient industry, unswerving fidelity, de- 
voted piety, wrought out in the life of this once 
careless and godless sailor boy such a history of 
good deeds and noble works as really few have ever 
had recorded to their credit in the book of destiny. 
Feeling the call of God within him to devote him- 
self to the benefit of that class of men amongst 
whom his own early life had been cast, he followed 
the openings God's providence made with the care- 
fulness of a hunter on the track of game, never 
losing his purpose and never relaxing his effort un- 
til now he sees the desire of his heart accomplished 
and he is ready to fully enter into the call of his 
gracious Lord. If his erstwhile companions before 
the mast will carefully study this life and imitate it 
in the measure of their opportunity, how many a 
noble man will spring from the hard places of such 
service to the high and blessed places of such 
power for good as was his. 



CHAPTER X. 

WORK AMONG SEAMEN. 

"And men wlao work can only work for- men; 
And not to work in vain, must comprehend 

Humanity, and work humanely, 
And raise men's bodies still by raising souls 

As God did first." 

RELIEVED now from the burden of his 
school work, Mr. Fletcher was at liberty 
to devote himself to his work in the Bethel service. 
He had hoped that a chaplain who was a minister 
would have arrived before he entered fully upon 
it, but as his coming was delayed and the demand 
was so urgent, and so many sailors seemed waiting 
for some one to guide them in the right way, that 
he could but enter the open door in the name 
of the Lord. So on the evening of Sabbath, July 
4th, he began ''Gospel meetings" in the chapel of 
the Mariner's Home. A large congregation was 



WORK AMONG SEAMEN. 129 

present, and one sailor was converted. On the fol- 
lowing Sabbath night another large congregation 
met him again at the same place, and two were 
converted to God. During the week he followed 
this result up by visitations and prayer with the 
sailors in their rooms, and on the following Sunday 
evening his faithfulness was rewarded with two 
more conversions. The same character of work 
with the same result of weekly conversions contin- 
ued for many weeks. It is not likely that any pop- 
ular pulpit in Portland gathered such a harvest of 
souls for the Master during this summer month of 
July as did this worker among the sailors in the 
''Mariner's Home." 

On the 22d of August Mr. Fletcher records a ser- 
vice held for him by Rev. T. L. Sails, at that time a 
very evangelical and successful minister in the Ore- 
gon Conference of the M. E. Church. Mr. Sails 
had been a sailor, and reached Portland some years 
before as such, ''having no hope and without God 
in the world." He chanced to fall into Taylor 
Street Church one evening when revival services 
Avere being conducted by its pastor. Rev. G. W. 
Izer, and was led to seek God at its altar. It was 
not long before he was converted, and soon after 



130 William S. FLETCHER. 

his natural gifts of speech and his evident consecra- 
tion commended him to the church as called of 
God to the Gospel ministry. He was licensed as a 
preacher, and entering the ministry of Oregon, for 
about ten years he fulfilled it with a fervency and 
zeal that gave promise of far more than average 
usfulness and success in his calling. When in the 
culminating vigor of his work he sickened and 
died, having vindicated his Christian character by 
the authority of a spotless Hfe and most heroic 
ministerial service. Having been a sailor in his 
youth, and being skilled in the vocabulary of the 
seas, and with a warm, sympathetic heart, and 
genial and bounding spirits, he was admirably 
adapted to the work among the seamen. Many 
thought, and among them Mr. Fletcher, that he 
should enter that work. 

His visit at this time to the Bethel was a marked 
event. He was among his brethren of the sea. 
He knew a sailor's heart. He understood their 
temptations. He sympathized with their weak- 
nesses. He pitied like the Master. And having 
traveled the way himself, he knew well how to 
guide a repentant sailor's soul to God. ''Brother 
Sails was perfectly at home among my sailors, and 



WORK AMONG SEAMEN. 131 

let himself out," writes Mr. Fletcher. ''He had 
great freedom in speaking and was assisted by the 
blessed Holy Spirit himself, which carried the 
truth home to the hearts and consciences of all 
these wanderers from God. We had a glorious 
meeting. He spoke on the "Prodigal Son," of 
which there were many present.'' 

From July to about the first of September Mr. 
Fletcher had full charge of the Bethel work in 
Portland. At this latter date Rev. Mr. Gilpin, of 
England, arrived as Chaplain. The period during 
which Mr. Fletcher had charge of the work in the 
Bethel was marked by more conversions and a 
deeper spirituality than any other of its history. 
During the five months, besides his three weekly 
public services in the chapel, and his visits to and 
care over the sailors when they were on land, he 
made 148 visits to ships in port and conversed with 
their officers and crews, distributed 6000 pages of 
tracts and other reading matter. He also visited 
a large number of families in the interests of his 
Bethel work. Twenty-eight sailors were convert- 
ed and he gave fourteen Bibles to those converted 
who had none. This is a record of work and suc- 
cess of which any pastor might well be proud. 



132 WILIAM S. FLETCHER. 

Mr. Fletcher, in his usual grateful way, gives ''all 
the praise and glory of this blessed work to the 
Holy Spirit," who so obviously attended and sanc- 
tified all his services. And yet the human basis of 
it all was in Mr, Fletcher's own adaptation to the 
work in which he was engaged. His naturally 
broad humanness, his plain, unstudied common 
sense, his kindly interest in every one that needed 
help, his calm fearlessness, coupled with a real hu- 
mility, were the constitutional personal elements 
that adapted him to his work. Then there was an- 
other fact, well stated by himself in his journal, 
when accounting for the failure of a chaplain, that 
at the same time accounted largely for his own suc- 
cess. He says: — 

"It takes a man who has been to sea himself, and has 
lived in a ship's forecastle and has gone through its trials 
and hardships. It is only such a man who can fully enter 
into the sympathies of these dear men of the sea. I feel 
thankful to God that I had spent my younger days on the 
sea, and had such an experience that the Lord Is now enab- 
ling me to use it to call these dear men of the sea out of 
darkness into His marvelous light." 

In the course of his visitations to the large num- 
ber of ships that lay in the harbor during the pres- 
ent season, Mr. Fletcher found a large number of 



WORK AMONG SEAMEN. 133 

Christian captains, as well as many seamen who 
were truly devoted laborers for the Master. On 
the 8th day of January, 1888, he records the fact 
that Captain Lloyd, of the bark Dora Ann, 
preached at nig-ht at the Bethel with excellent ef- 
fect. The congregation were mostly sailors. It 
seemed to point out to him the approach of the 
time when ''the abundance of the sea shall be con- 
verted to God," and the very ships of commerce 
should become flying evangels carrying to every 
land the ''glad tidings of great joy" to all people. 

Not far from the Mariner's Bethel the Portland 
corps of the Salvation Army had, at this time, its 
barracks. Many sailors attended these meetings, 
and many of them were converted. Mr. Fletcher 
wrought in harmony with them, often attending 
their services, giving them much aid in their work. 
While he was receiving encouragement and help 
from them, and with the broad Christian charity 
that always distinguished him, extending to them 
all the encouragement in his power. Chaplain Gil- 
pin, who had charge under the Seaman's Friend 
Society, of the Bethel work in the port, took a 
violent stand against them. This fact greatly em- 
barrassed the work of that society, and while Mr. 



134 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

Fletcher's personal influence remained unimpaired 
among the sea-going people of the port, kept the 
seamen away from the Bethel services. But ship 
visitation was continued by him with equal and 
even increased diligence and effectiveness, and 
with no diminution of results. A few extracts from 
his daily record will show his faithfulness in this 
work, as it will also some of the results of the same 
method of work in other years. 

"Jan. 27, 1888.— I spent the forenoon in visiting six ships 
at the Albina docks, and had a profitable tall£ with the of- 
ficers and men, some of whom are to leave on their way to 
their home ports today and tomorrow. May the Lord keep 
them on their way." 

"Feb. 2.— Visited six ships. I met one of the men of the 
four-masted ship Ben Danran, who was here eight years 
ago when we had a great revival among the ships in port. 
He knew me as quick as he saw me, and we found that as 
"iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the counten 
ance of his friend." One of the men of the bark Peebles- 
shire, who was converted at the Salvation Army meetings, 
and left for home in his ship this evening, promised to 
write me on his arrival there. May the Lord give him a 
prosperous voyage, and make him abundantly useful in 
bringing his shipmates to Christ," 

"Feb. 15.— Visited six ships this afternoon and held con- 
versations with both officers and men. I had a long talk 
with Mr. Mortimer, the first officer of the ship Cimara. He 



WORK AMONG SEAMEN. 135 

is a good ChristiaD man, and is much liked by his crew. 
He -was converted here in our ship meetings some eight 
years ago, and is much interested in our Bethel work, but 
feel that we cannot succeed in it without a change in our 
chaplain." 

"Feb. 16.— This afternoon I visited two ships and had 
one of the best times I have enjoyed in talking to the first 
officer and carpenter of the bark Kier. They wanted me to 
give them an account of my conversion. The Holy Spirit 
gave me \vords to speak to them, and I hope and trust the 
same Holy Spirit carried it to their hearts and consciences 
to the saving of iheir souls. I have been asking the blessed 
Holy Spirit for some time that he would teach me how to 
perform my duty in the best possible manner among my 
brethren of the sea. I want Him to fill me with His unc- 
tion, to enable me to speak with power to the hearts and 
consciences of these sailors. I can truly say that he is 
answering my prayer, for He is giving me more liberty in 
speaking and praying in the last few weeks than I have 
ever enjoyed before.' 

Thus from day to day and from month to 
month, year after year. Mr. Fletcher went his un- 
vrearied way of good doing, and thus the sailors 
that went out of the port of Portland over all seas 
and to all parts of the world bore the memory of 
this good man in their hearts, Avhile the fruits of 
his toil for them ripened in their lives of devotion 
in every land. 

The writer does not intimate that all this good 



136 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

was the entirely independent result of Mr. Fletch- 
er's work. He had many sympathetic helpers; 
many who loved him, prayed for him, encouraged 
him; but he gathered into his own life the impulse 
of their devotion and friendship and gave it out 
again to others, enriched, enlarged, sanctified, and 
mighty for larger good. Among those who oc- 
cupied this situation to him was Dr. Samuel Nel- 
son. Alike in many of their quahties, but unlike 
in others, they were knit together in a friendship 
and trust like that of David and Jonathan. Their 
Christian experience was of the same type; deep, 
steady, and well expressed in the phrase, "perfect 
love." The writer has known few if any in all his 
life who more nearly demonstrated a practical and 
constant fulfillment of the Saviour's summa- 
tion of the perfect law of God: "Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all 
thy mind, and with all thy soul and with all thy 
strength and thy neighbor as thyself," than in the 
lives of these two men. Charitable, tender-hearted, 
pure in thought and speech, gentle as sanctified wo- 
manhood, yet stable as the strongest manhood, 
they walked before the Lord and before the world 
with open and uplifted countenances continually. 



WORK AMONG SEAMEN, 137 

On the 1st day of February, 1888, Dr. Nelson 
was translated. On the 3d his funeral was held in 
Grace Church, of which he, as well as Mr. Fletcher 
was a member. It would not be proper to omit, 
in this record, the tender reference to this event, 
and to the character of this dear friend in the jour- 
nal of Mr. Fletcher for that day: 

"I attended to-day the funeral services of that dear old 
saint of God, Dr. Samuel Nelson. Dr. H. K. Hines deliv- 
ered a most affectionate and touching tribute to his mem- 
ory. My own heart responded to every word he said of 
him, for I knew the inner life of Dr. Nelson better than 
any other member of the church. He was a lover of the 
doctrine of holiness, and knew the power of its blessed ex- 
perience as well as myself. I first met the doctor in 1865 
at the Ames Chapel camp meeting. I formed his friendship 
then, and as the years went by our love for each other in- 
creased. I always found him a brother beloved in the 
Lord." 

They two, with a number of others connected 
with the most practical Christian work in the city, 
and who also enjoyed the most exalted Christian 
experience, walked in closest personal communion 
for many years. Often they sung what was but a 
reflection of their constant sentiment towards each 
other: — 



138 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

"Blest be the tie that binds 
Our hearts in Christian love; 

The fellowship of kindred minds 
Is like to that above." 

In reading the record of Mr. Fletcher's work 
from day to day as it is given in his journal, one is 
greatly impressed with his sustained faith and en- 
thusiasm in it. It lacked all the contagious inspi- 
ration that comes out of crowded assemblies, vocal 
with music and thrilling with eloquent discourse, 
with all the accessories of public Avorship, but was 
simply the quiet, unobserved, hand to hand strug- 
gle of a single man, full of faith and love, with 
other single men without either faith or love, in a 
desperate endeavor to win these other men to the 
"like precious faith" and the like ''perfect love" 
that filled his own heart. No braver, truer work is 
ever done than that. The preacher in the pulpit is 
helped and uplifted by the magnetic eye-flash of 
approving or applauding hearers. He is in the 
warm, comfortable shurch, shut away from the 
storm, and shut away from the sight of human deg- 
radations for the time, in what, both in surround- 
ings and society, ''is almost heaven." But one like 
Mr. Fletcher threads dark alleys alone, buttons his 



WORK AMONG SEAMEN. 139 

plain overcoat about him to break off the cold 
blast, walks icy decks, goes down into dark fore- 
castles, looks on human degradation in its darkest 
deeps, grasps the filthy hand of the most fallen sin- 
ner, listens to the bacchanalian revels of the 
drunken and profane instead of the sweet, pure 
voices of the church orchestra, all to save those 
lost; all to rescue those fallen. Surely the Christ 
must needs be incarnate again in the very purpose 
of His first incarnation in such a man or he could 
not and would not do such work. 

During the month of March in this year, 1888, 
he records the visiting of forty-six ships arid con- 
versing with officers and sailors, distributing relig- 
ious literature, magazines, and current secular pa- 
pers, and, in addition, made four visits to the hos- 
pitals of the city, and kept up his attendance on 
his class and prayer meetings in the church of 
which he was a member. 

It will be recalled that Mr. Fletcher was labor- 
ing under the general direction of the "Portland 
Seaman's Friend Society." On the second day of 
May its annual meeting was held in the parlors of 
Ladd&Tilton's bank, and was presided over by Mr. 
James Steel, a prominent business man and a lead- 



140 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

ing member of the First Congregational Church of 
Portland, and one of the steadfast friends of the 
work of Mr. Fletcher among the seamen. A syn- 
opsis of the report of work done by him during the 
year just past will very clearly indicate its extent 
and value. He says: 

"Since my last annual report I have made 408 visits to 
ships in port, and had many profitable conversations with 
officers and men and apprentice boys. I have attended 
twenty-tv70 ship's services with our chaplain, and have 
made thirty visits ^o the hospitals and enjoyed many pre- 
cious seasons in speakmg and praying with a great number 
of the patients in their several wards. I have written 
many letters to the men and boys at the different ports to 
which they sailed trom here, and have received many en- 
couraging letters from them. I have also received a large 
number of letters from the mothers of many of these dear 
boys, inquiring about them. I find this is becoming a very 
important part of my work. I have distributed thousands 
of pages of choice reading matter on the ships, for which 
all are very grateful. I wish especially in their behalf, 
to thank the many kind friends who have furnished me so 
much of this literature. I have often visited our "Seaman's 
Home" and conversed with its inmates, and tried to ad- 
vance the Bethel and ship work by all means in my power. 
The oflScers and men and apprentice boys have always 
treated me kindly, and much good has been apparently 
done among them." 



CHAPTER XL 

ON SHIP AND ON SHORE. 

If you cannot, on the ocean, sail among the swiftest fleet, 
Rocking on the highest billow, laughing at the storm you 

meet, 
You can stand among the sailors anchored yet within the 

bay, 
You can lend a hand to help them as they launch their 

boats away." 

—Phillips. 

IT has been observed by the reader that for some 
time the work of the Chaplain of the Bethel 
had not been prosperous. The incumbent had 
high ideas of personal dignity, with a somewhat ex- 
alted churchism, and felt that it was his place to 
command and the sailors place to obey, even in 
matters of religion. He could not understand that 
Jack on shore was a freeman, and the very fact that 



142 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER, 

he had been compelled to submit to a vigorous dis- 
cipline on the ship made him the more certain to 
assert his independence when on the land. He was 
then on an independent cruise, and he rather de- 
lighted in running close by the most dangerous 
reefs, if only to show his own skill in avoiding ship- 
wreck. He could be touched, but not by cold and 
high-headed dignity. He did not care for a clerical 
garb. He resented sing-song cant. Bustling rit- 
uals meant nothing to him. He was not looking 
for men of that ilk at all. In fact, he was not look- 
ing for anybody. Least of all was he on the hunt 
for a man shut up in stone walls, sitting in a high 
pulpit, and in a solemn air waiting for some rollick- 
ing tar to come in and bow down and say: ''Most 
Reverend Sir, won't you please condescend to tell 
me how I may be saved?'' Such a man, sitting in 
''the dim — very dim — religious light" of such a 
place is not very likely to have many '"mourners ' 
at his "bench;" certainly not many of the gallant 
and light hearted boys of the sea. The wonder is 
not that they do not come, but that he sits there 
and expects them to come. The free street, the 
wide open door, the generous invitation going 
straight to the heart, the manly recognition of the 



ON SHIP AND ON SHORE. 143 

sailor-boy's own manhood, the tender reference to 
his far-away mother, or the watching, waiting 
sweetheart, anxious for her absent lover's 32;"ood,and 
praying for his safe return, these and such thoughts 
as these will gain his ear and hold his heart. When 
he learns to love the representative of Christ he 
will soon love the Christ he represents. There is 
no other avenue to the sailor's heart. 

Unfortunately the Chaplain at this time in the 
Bethel had never learned this lesson. A good man 
undoubtedly, he was stern and inflexible. He was 
a bit of the rock of Horeb that by some accident 
had been dislocated and fallen upon the blood- 
bathed, love-illumined summits of the mount of 
the Cross and of the Transfiguration. He was the 
everlasting thunder of the law, jarring its discords 
of wrath amidst the heavenly symphonies of "grace 
and truth." 

Mr. Fletcher, while doing the things of the law, 
always sang and talked and lived according to the 
strains of the "New^ Song," "Peace on earth, good 
will to men." This difference in feeling and its re- 
sultant expression in action, brought to him much 
trial, and, what was infinitely worse, greatly re- 
tarded the general work of the society. The ser- 



144 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

vices at the Bethel under the direction of the 
Chaplain were nearly deserted, notwithstanding the 
work of Mr. Fletcher on ship-board and elsewhere 
among the sailors was prosecuted with his usual 
diligence and success. He did all he could to 
remedy the evil by the most hearty assistance he 
could render at the Bethel, and with some good re- 
sults, but not so marked as he desired. By some 
solicitation he succeeded in persuading the Chap- 
lain to go out on the streets for a short service of 
song before the hour for chapel services, and by 
this means gather a larger number inside to listen 
to the sermon which followed. Still even this 
seemed not strong enough to overcome the evil 
influence that paralyzed the public work at the 
Bethel. It is no wonder that Mr. Fletcher earnest- 
ly prayed that ''the Lord would send a change 
soon in the Chaplaincy of the Bethel." 

On the 12th of May he notes one of the peculiar- 
ly sad class of incidents that are always occurring 
in seaports. The carpenter of the bark Clynder, 
while endeavoring to cross a railroad trestle on his 
way to his ship, while under the influence of liquor, 
fell from it and was killed. His name was Jacob 
Bremner, of Hamburg, Germany. Only a few days 



ON SHIP AND ON SHORE. 145 

before Mr. Fletcher had visited the ship on his 
Sabbath morning round, and spent a half hour in 
talking to the men in the forecastle, and distribut- 
ing books and papers among them. This man was 
doubtless among those who shared the loving min- 
istrations of this lover of men at that time. It was 
doubtless the last call of that kind he ever listened 
to. It is not wonderful that the one who was God's 
messenger in uttering that call should say, "I am 
more than ever impressed with the necessity of my 
work among these dear men of the sea, and that 
what I have to do for them must be done quickly. 
This makes the seventeenth that we have laid away 
in our new mariner's cemetery since it was opened." 
Sad as is that last record, there is a very glad one 
that stands against it, namely, that many times that 
number had come to this port "dead in trespass and 
in sins" but had sailed away again with a new spirit- 
ual life in their hearts. While the sad hearts of the 
friends of those who sleep in that cemetery will 
turn towards Portland and think of their dead who 
slumber there, many more will turn towards it and 
think of their living who were born there unto the 
new and incorruptible Hfe. While the first will 
think of Mr. Fletcher as the one whose hands 



146 WILLIAM S. FLETCHEIi. 

gently smoothed the dying pillow of wandering 
sons or brothers or lovers, and whose care gave 
them Christian sepulchre under the distant skies of 
Oregon, the latter will think of him as the priest 
ministrant at the altar of divine consecration when 
their sons or brothers or lovers were "born into the 
Kingdom of God." Or, they themselves, thus and 
here born into that divine Hfe, will turn back to it 
in ever-recurring remembrance of the natal hour 
and natal spot that will forever monument their 
spiritual birth. They will sing: — 

••There is a spot to me more dear 

Than native vale or mountain; 
A spot for which affection's tear 

Springs grateful from its fountain." 
'Tis not where kindred souls abound, 

Though that were almost heaven; 
But where I first my Saviour found 

And felt my sins forgiven 

O, blessed hour! O, hallowed spot 

Where love divine first found me! 
Wherever falls my distant lot, 

My heart still lingers round thee. 
And when from earth I rise and soar 

Up to my home in heaven, 
Down will I cast my eyes once more 

Where I was first forgiven." 



ON SHIP AND ON SHORE. 147 

And to many a one that spot will be the beauti- 
ful port of the Willamette, and the gentle pilot, 
who led the inquiring soul into the haven of rest 
and life will bear the name of Fletcher; and they 
''will glorify God in him." 

Early in June of this year the receipt of a letter 
from a young man who had been a member some 
years before of the Sabbath morning class of Mr. 
Fletcher in Taylor Street Church, brought many 
pleasant and grateful memories to his mind which 
he thus records: 

"I received a letter to-day from Brother E. R. Zimmer- 
man, novr of the Kansas Conference, and stationed at 
Reamsville, Kansas. This dear brother was put into my 
class by Rev. C. C. Stratton, onr pastor, when he was con- 
verted. It was Brother Stratton also who appointed me 
leader of that class. While Brother Zimmerman was a 
member of my class he received the blessings of perfect 
love, and felt himself called to preach the gospel. So he 
went to the theological seminary in Boston for three years. 
After he got through with his studies he entered the Kan- 
sas conference, where he has been a good and faithful 
minister ever since. I had not heard from him for some 
years and my heart rejoices at the good news from him 
In looking over my old class-books from 1869 to 1880, I 
find that there are now five members of that Sabbath 
morning class preaching the gospel, and one died a few 
months ago. The first was Brother Zimmerman, then came 



148 WILLIM S. FLETCHER. 

T. L. Sails, then S. O. Royal and A. J. McNamee, and later 
E. A. Shoreland and J. C. Teter, th^ last two now in Africa 
under that dear man of God, Bishop Taylor." 

This quotation from Mr. Fletcher's journal is 
given specially to show how the small seeds of 
grace sown in human hearts, under the silent in- 
fluences of pious culture, spring up and bring forth 
their great harvests of goodness over all the world. 
In this little class-room, under the guidance of this 
unpretentious leader, these young men were being 
trained in the most essential culture of a successful 
career, a deep, profound reHgious experience. T. 
L. Sails, a sailor rescued from his wide-world rov- 
ings by his conversion in Taylor Street Church, be- 
came one of the best beloved and most successful 
of Oregon pastors, and then went up to his rest. 
Stanley O. Royal is at this writing among the hon- 
ored and useful members of the Cincinnati Con- 
ference. After some years of most devoted mis- 
sionary toil under Bishop Taylor in Africa, E. A. 
Shoreland stepped into the ascending chariot on 
the banks of the Congo. J. E. Teter wrought no- 
bly for the Master under the same great leader- 
ship in the "Darkest Africa," when he returned to 
another field in Florida. Not one of them but 



ON SHIP AND ON SHORE. 149 

bore some impress of the moulding spirit of Mr. 
Fletcher into all their splendid Ufe-work. Surely 
"the children of the kingdom are the good seed/' 
not so much by what they say and teach, as by 
what they are and do. 

Only a month after the entry in Mr. Fletcher's 
journal made in relation to E. A. Shoreland, he 
chronicles the news of his death. Mr. Fletcher had 
so much to do with the first religious life of Mr. 
Shoreland that it appears proper to make some 
larger reference to him, and to the noble place he 
was filling even in his early manhood, in the work 
of the Master. 

Shoreland was an EngHsh sailor, and came to 
Portland as such, and, like the great mass of sailors 
who came to this port at that time, wild and reck- 
less. He had a strong, forceful, passionate nature; 
just such as must pour itself out either in good or 
evil. Here he left his ship and resolved to try his 
fortunes on the land, at least for a time. He soon 
found employment in such work as an uneducated 
sailor might do. His contact with men on the 
shore in the active business of life gave a new bent 
to his thoughts, and it was not long before his 
mind began to grasp the idea that there was some- 



150 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

thing better in the world for men to do than to con- 
sume the strong forces of mind and body in dissipa- 
tion and revel, if not in crime. His powers of ob- 
servation were keen, and he soon came to the con- 
clusion that the moral help and the intellectual 
stimulus he needed to make a man of himself could 
only be had in the associations and fellowship of the 
church. With full consecrations he began a reUg- 
ious life. His mental ambition was born with his 
new spiritual birth. When his soul touched saving 
grace his mind ignited at contact with ''the mind 
of Christ." So he became "altogether" Christian. 
Soon he was licensed as a preacher, and labored in 
an energetic though humble way in the chapels 
and missions in and about the citv. Laboring: 
earnestly during the week at such toil as came to 
him. on the Sabbaths and in the evenings he 
wrought in the spiritual and intellectual quarries 
to save souls and to gain knowledge. He suc- 
ceeded in both. It was not long until the door of 
the Annual Conference opened to him and he took 
his place in the line of the approved and improving 
young pastorate of the church. Souls everywhere 
were his hire in the fields of his labor. His sturdy, 
well-knit frame seemed fitted to the heaviest bur- 



ON SHIP AND ON SHORE. 151 

dens of a rugged pioneer itinerancy. The church in 
Oregon began to count on him as one whose work 
would pillar her future with strength and beauty. 

Just at this time the work of Bishop Taylor in 
Africa was drawing the vision of the church 
thitherward with a strange enchantment. Shore- 
land's was a soul to feel the contagion of Taylor's 
enthusiasm and consecration. He was brave 
enough to respond to it, and he entered the work 
in that dark land with an enthusiasm and a judg- 
ment that put him far towards the front of the 
workers there. But on March 31, 1888, his strong 
body succumbed to the burning grip of the African 
fever, and at Lorando he surrendered his purified 
soul to God and passed into the heavens. 

When the intelligence of his death reached Ore- 
gon it awakened great sympathy in the heart of the 
church. The present writer, who was at that time 
editor of the Pacific Christian Advocate in Port- 
land, and who had been Mr. Shoreland's pastor in 
the years of his early Christian life, gave the fol- 
lowing notice of the event in his paper of July 12, 
1888:— 

"So this dear brother has given his life for Africa. He 
gave it really when he went there, for no one can go on 



152 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

such a mission as that without giving his life to it. The 
whole for life or death is determined when the work is 
undertaken. So it was with Brother Shoreland. Only a 
few minutes before he stepped on board the cars that bore 
him away from this city on his mission to Africa, we bade 
him adieu. Tears were in his eyes and ours, as we looked 
the last look of love, spoke the last word of fellowship. 
We have borne him on our heart daily since that hour. We 
resign that strong and consecrated manhood to death reluc- 
tantly, if we dare say that, and yet feeling that someway 
his going to Africa and dying there is a part of the price of 
Africa's redemption, and so our regrets are mingled with 
rejoicing at his entrance into the life eternal. Sails and 
Shoreland: How they loved each other; and how they 
have met so soon." 

Mr. Fletcher's reference to Shoreland, when he 
received the intelligence of his death, was charac- 
teristically tender. He says: 

"I have seen by the Advocate to-day the news of the 
death of our dear Brother Shoreland, who went out with 
Bishop Taylor under the call of God to help redeem Africa. 
Well do I remember when I first met him years ago with 
other English sailor lads, who had left their ships on this 
coast, wild and reckless, just as I myself used to be before 
the grace and spirit of God found me, as it afterwards 
found Brother Shoreland. Now he is gone to heaven to 
meet our beloved shipmate, T. L, Sails, who has just gone 
before him. I am still left to sow a little more seed of 
the kingdom, and, if possible, to save a few more of these 



ON SHIP AND ON SHORE. 153 

dear sailor lads, so they too may become like these who 
liave gone above, mighty through God in the saving of 
their fellows. May God fill me with grace and power for 
this great work 



CHAPTER XII. 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

"It is a great mistake to think of converting the world 

without the help of the sailor. You might as well think of 

melting a mountain of ice with a moonbeam, or of heating 

an oven with snowballs; but get the sailor converted, and 

he is off from one port to another as if you had put spurs 

to lightning." 

—Taylor. 

DURING the summer months the ships that 
trade with Portland are mostly on their 
voyages out, and they do not generally begin to 
arrive in port for cargo until autumn. Consequent- 
ly during these months there is little ''ship work" 
unless "a. wanderer" chances along. Much corres- 
pondence was generally carried on by Mr. Fletch- 
er at this time with captains and sailors from their 
home ports. It was almost entirely with those 
who owed him some special gratitude for his care 
over them religiously when they were here, or from 
those who by his influence had been led to Christ 



(JORKESPONDENCE. 155 

and had gone away Christians, even though they 
came condemned sinners. Not infrequently the 
friends, as mother, sister, brother or father of some 
poor wanderer who had been sick and perhaps 
died here, and had been tenderly watched over by 
Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher while living or lovingly laid 
away to rest when dead, would send some tender 
and pathetic acknowledgment of that care and love. 
A brief chapter of this correspondence, selected 
from a few of the many letters received by them at 
different times and on various occasions, cannot 
but be interesting and profitable to the readers of 
these pages; as they will show the high esteem 
in w^hich these lovers of their race were personally 
held by those whom they so heartily and generous- 
ly comforted and aided when they were strangers 
in a strange land. Besides they will give some 
glimpses of the trying life of the sailor and of the 
terrible moral strain that is upon him to lead him 
away from all good and truth and virtue, against 
which the efforts of such men and women as Mr. 
and Mrs. Fletcher, are about the only safeguard 
and protection. They will be introduced without 
any special chronological order, as they are used 
only for the ends named above. The first is from a 



156 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

lady of Birkenhead, England, in a full, round beau- 
tiful chirography, and is signed by "Kate Mac- 
lean," and is as follows: 

"Dear Mrs. Fletcher:— Mr brother Hiighie has told us so 
much about you and Mr. Fletcher, that we all feel as if we 
knew j^ou; and we all feel so A^ery grateful to you for all 
the kindness you shoAved him during his stay in Portland. 
Oregon. He did so enjoy being Avith you, and said it ahvays 
gave him a taste of home when he went to your house. * 
* * * ^g shall always think ot you with feel- 

ings of love and gratitude for all your goodness to Hughie." 

It is suitable that this letter from the loving 
sister should be followed by one from the sailor 
brother over whose welfare she so tenderly 
watched. It was also dated at Birkenhead, April 
23, 1890; and reads as follows: 

"Dear Mr. Fletcher:— I suppose you haA-e quite gi\"en up 
all hope of ever hearing from me again. I feel quite 
ashamed of myself for not writing you sooner, after all the 
kindness received by me from you and Mrs. Fletcher, 
which AA'as so much more to me as I was in a strange place 
and so far from home. 

"I have been working on board the ship for the past fort- 
night, so that will be in part excuse for not writing. We 
sail tomorrow for Sydney, New South Wales, with part of 
the cargo for Newcastle. I have often thought of the many 
happy evenings I spent in Grace Chapel, and how homelike 



CORRESPONDENCE. 157 

it felt to get among- kind people, and I feel quite sure that 
it the congregation knew how happy they make boys feel 
when in a strange land, and far from their friends, hy their 
shake of the hand, it would pay them ten-fold. I suppose 
you are quite at home in your new church by this time, and 
I hope it pleases everybody, but if I ever go to Portland 
again I think I would feel more at home by going to the 
nice little chapel than to the new church. 

"My father and sisters all wish to be kindly remembered 
to you and Mrs. Fletcher for your kindness to me; and I 
close with lore and best wishes to you both from us all. 
"Yours sincerely. 

-HUGHIE MACLEAN." 

^"\'hat a beautiful glympse of real human brother- 
hood and sisterhood is opened to the mind of the 
reader in these two letters. The sailor-boy, swim- 
ming over distant seas on the rolling ship; the 
loving sister in the cottage-home following him 
day by day over the wide main with her heart's 
best love and her faith's most ardent prayers; the 
true, human-hearted Christian standing on the 
dock, half way round the world, awaiting, with 
Vv'ide open and protecting arms, the sailor coming 
from the seas; the little chapel out of whose doors 
and windows streams the inviting light of the Gos- 
pel; the congregation of loving worshipers ex- 
tending their hands in glad greeting to the sea- 



158 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

worn sailor from another clime to the strong 
brotherhood and the loving sisterhood of the 
church; these are all a part of the beautiful whole 
of the scene these letters paint to the mind. Surelv 
such facts and such work go far to prove that, even 
if humanity was all lost in Adam, it was all re- 
gained in Christ. 

A sailor-boy who has been cared for and instruct- 
ed by ]\'Ir. Fletcher and his wife while in port is 
now about to sail away on his long voyage. His 
vessel had dropped down the Columbia to Astoria, 
and just before she put to sea he wrote ^Ir. Fletch- 
er the following letter: 

"Dear Brother in the Lord:— I thought it good to write a 
line before we leave for home. We thank God for the visits 
which vou have paid to ns from time to time since we ar- 
rived in Portland. It is to be hoped that we will see the 
fruits of them some day if not now. We thank yon for the 
reading which yon gave us. especially for the book of ser- 
mons. It is singular but it is the very thing that I desired, 
so I consider the Lord sent it. Blessed ever be His holy 
name for His kind care of me. This is like the Lord in 
all His dealings with me. He supplies all of my wants 
and takes all of my cares. I did intend to visit you before I 
left, but you see the Lord sent what I wanted. I hope that 
your mission room will soon open. You cannot know what 
a comfort it is to have a place to go to where we may find 



CORRESPONDENCE. 159 

Christian felloAvship Avitli those who love the Lord aud love 
to speak of these things. In my case yon are the only one 
I have had a v^^ord with since I came there, I never neglect- 
ed to try to lead any who were around me in the ship in 
the right, and had good hopes that all was well with some 
of them, but having no place where I could direct them 
when they might meet with what they needed to keep them 
from temptation they seem all to have fallen away. I 
think more of this as I see the need of their finding some 
kind friend who has Influence to keep them from the "run- 
ners" and "boarding house masters." One of our men es- 
pecially I will mention. He has a wife and little one at 
home. He had remained firm until the last day or two. 
when, through drink, he fell away and left. Here is a Avife 
and little one left to get their bread as best they can, as 
the half-pay that she had stopped. I am sure if proper in- 
fluence had been brought to bear on him the boarding- 
masters would not have got him. 

"The papers and books that you gave will be read aud 
distributed around on the ship. 

Yours, in Christ, 

WILLIAM BUNTING." 

Member Seaman's Christian Life Boat Crew, Motto— "He 
that winneth souls is wise." 

This letter indicates one class of perils to which 
the sailor in port is always exposed. Mr. Fletcher 
himself, in his early life, when on the sea had suf- 
fered from them, and he was the better prepared 
to guard those who came under his influence from 



160 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

them. There are ahvays in every port land pirates 
who lie in wait to make Jack their prey. False, 
immoral, treacherous men, yea, and women too, 
whose sole business is entrapping the unwary into 
their dens of infamy and then robbing them of 
whatever they may have of worth, and then casting 
them out into the street, careless whether they live 
or die. Many and many were the sailor-boys Mr. 
Fletcher guided away from these haunts of death — 
these chambers of hell. He led them to the 
church. He took them to his own home. He was 
brother, father, protector to them. Mrs. Fletcher 
was sister, mother, friend to them. No wonder 
the sisters, mothers and fathers of these sailor-boys 
all over the world love and revere the names of 
these two angels of help to their brothers and sons 
in Portland. The Christ himself will say unto 
them, ''inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least 
of these, ye have done it unto Me." 

Some of these letters show something of the hard 
and harsh treatment given the sailors on board 
some of the ships. In a letter bearing date at Liv- 
erpool, from David Jones, we find the following: — 

"I arrived here Monday night, and we laid six days in 
Queenstown. The ship I came home on. (the Edward 



CORRESPONDENCE. 161 

O'Brien,) I need liardly tell you, was a very hot one; but I 
am pleased to say that I got along better than I did in any 
other ship. I have the chance of going back, either as 
third mate or second boatswain, but I would not go in her 
for $100 a month and have to beat men the way the officers 
did. There were four men in that ship triced up by the 
thumbs for threatening to kill the mate. One of them had 
a revolver in his breast at the time he was hanging up ou 
the line; but he had no chance to use it, I suppose. 

We had a very stormy passage. Two men were Avashed 
overboard, but we got them again with a great deal of 
trouble, more dead than alive. Another seaman fell from 
the rigging while reefing the sails, and broke his leg and 
cut his face." 

This letter from David Jones was followed not 
long after by one dated Liverpool, August 26th, 
1889, from Mr. E. Jones, the father of David, which 
has great interest as indicating the excellent influ- 
ence of Mr. Fletcher over the life and destiny of 
these sailor-boys in all respects. The letter of Mr. 
Jones, Senior, says: 

"Dear Mr. Fletcher: I now take the pleasure of Avriting 
you, hoping these few lines will find you in good health. 
David received your kind letter, which I think he answered 
the same week after receiving it. We were very pleased to 
have him home, also to see him looking so well. We 
scarcely knew him when he came, he has altered so much, 
but w^ere pleased to see such a change in him for the better. 



162 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

He is settling down better than we thought he would, and 
looks at things in a more sensible light than he formerly 
did. And, above all, we were pleased to see that he is a to- 
tal abstainer. He was telling us he had not touched drink 
since he left the Arethusa, and we have no fear now of his 
falling away again. Many thanks for the kindly influeuce 
you have had on him, and the interest you have taken in his 
welfare. We assure you we have appreciated your kindness 
very much, although we can return you but poor thanks 
by letter. His mind seems settled on America, especially 
the district you reside in. 

Well, he has left us once more. He did not go back on 
the Edward O'Brien, As there was A^ery cruel treatment 
on board during her passage here, we did not wish him to 
go in her again. He sailed from Liverpool on the 12th of 
August on the Loch Broom, for Calcutta, and intends ship- 
ping from there to 'Frisco if he can. We hope he will soon 
meet with a ship from there. As he seems to have his 
mind on America, we think he would do better to settle 
ashore. With kind regards to Mrs, Fletcher, 
Sincerely yours, 

E. JONES." 

One cannot read such letters without feehng 
that it is really easy to do good. A kind, sympa- 
thizing heart, good common sense, an earnest 
spirit and a soul in fellowship with the soul of 
Christ can hardly avoid doing good. It does not 
need great professions or even great abilities, only 
sincerity, truth and love. They were the elements 



CORRESPONDENCE. 163 

that bore the mastery in the life of Mr. Fletcher, 
and that found for him so ready an opening into 
the hearts of sailor-boys with whom he came into 
contact. How many they lifted from profanity to 
prayer, from drunkenness to devotion, from revel- 
ry to reverence, from a life of aimless folly to a life 
of high and holy purpose, only eternity will dis- 
close. It is the conviction of the writer that many 
a man who has stood in the high places of the 
church on earth may be found far below him in the 
preferments of the Church Triumphant. God 
does not forget, nor the Recording Angel keep the 
book incorrectly. If "patient continuance in well 
doing," if constant "looking for glory and honor 
and immortality" gives any assurance of "eternal 
life,'' or gives an advanced grade of heavenly re- 
ward, surely he will shine among the brightest 
''stars in the firmament forever and ever." 

One other letter written by a young man of evi- 
dently more than average intelligence, must close 
this chapter of correspondence. It was written on 
board the English ship "Clan McPherson," in San 
Francisco harbor, January 11, 1891, and is as fol- 
lows : 



164 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

'"Dear Mr. Fletclier:— Just a few Hues to iuform you of 
our safe arrival here, for which I humbly thank God, for 
only He knows how near we were to death on this 
passage. We arrived here last Wednesday after a very 
quick but a most terrible and disastrous voyage. We 
experienced nothing but gales of wind the whole way; in 
fact we have never had a dry deck until the day we arrived 
here. The worst hurricane we encountered was on Christ- 
mas eve. Without exaggeration the sea ran mountains 
high, and caused a tremendous amount of damage, and un- 
fortunately some accidents, one of which nearly proved 
fatal. This was in the case of an apprentice of the name 
of Killam. The poor boy was knocked down bj^ a large sea 
and nearly drowned, so that it took us nearly two hours to 
bring him to consciousness. He was horribly cut and 
bruised about the head and on the body, so that we all 
despaired of his life; but I am glad to say he is now recov- 
ering. The same sea threw the ship on her beam ends and 
the cargo shifting we remained in that dangerous predica- 
met throughout the gale. Every wave that broke over us 
that dreadful night threatened to swamp us, and every 
minute we thought she would founder. We had a miserable 
Christmas, Mr. Fletcher, as we were in the hold trimming 
cargo all the time, with nothing for our Christmas cheer 
but rum and biscuit, as nothing could be cooked in the 
galley. Our two boats on the house were Avashed away, 
the pigs and the pigsty, the posts along our bulwarks, and 
everything that was movable on our decks. In fact, we 
were a complete wreck. How grateful we are to God for 
His goodness to us in enabling us to reach our destination, 
I will leave you to imagine. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 165 

"Remember me to dear Mrs. Fletcher, and tell her again 
how grateful I am for her kindness to me while in Port- 
land. I remain your sincerely attached young friend, 

"G. J. SPINK." 

What a picture of the perils of a sailor's life is 
here presented, not in the fancy paintings of a 
Marryatt or a Reid, but in the experience of this 
young sailor, who had this hard wrestle with the 
winds and the waves on this awful Christmas day. 
Surely these ''sailor-lads," as Mr. Fletcher so of- 
ten and so tenderly calls them, deserve the kind- 
liest treatment of those for whose comfort and 
pleasure they "go down to the sea in ships and do 
business in great waters." Brave? The warrior 
before the cannon's mouth is not braver! When 
"the sea shall give up the dead that is in it," many 
and many will rise from their coral beds and sea- 
weed shrouds to wear the whitest robes and bear 
the brightest crowns in Paradise. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

WON FOR GOD. 

"Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thoii shall find it 
after many days."— Bible. 

ry^ OWARDS the last of August, of 1888, the 
^ first vessel of the autumn merchant fleet 
arrived in Portland, and Mr. Fletcher hastened to 
greet its sailors with his usual messages of good. 
The summer had been spent largely in work in the 
mission Sunday school, and, as opportunity offered 
in services on the street and in the Bethel. But 
the prospects of the work in the Bethel were still 
clouded by the unfortunate condition of its chap- 
laincy. This, of course, was a sore trial to the pa- 
tience and Christian forbearance of Mr. Fletcher, 
iDut he bore it with courage, and labored on to 
build up the general work, and to reach and save 
the individual seamen. He notes that at one of 
the Bethel prayer meetings a young sailor who had 
just arrived in port introduced himself and inqtiired 



WON FOK GOD. 167 

if he recognized him, and when informed that he 
did not, repHed, "Well, I know you. I was here 
eight years ago, when I was a boy, and you held 
meetings on our ship, the "Robert Lee." At that 
time the captain of the ship and four of the men 
were converted, this boy among them, and he still 
remained steadfast and gave good promise of a 
useful life among his shipmates. Thus the bread 
cast literally upon the waters was found again "af- 
ter many days." 

Early in September of this year the annual mer- 
chant fleet began to arrive in port and for the three 
following months Mr. Fletcher was kept busy in 
visiting these vessels, and, as he had opportunity, 
doing good of every kind to all on board. The 
cabin-boy and the apprentice was no more over- 
looked in these efforts than were the officers. He 
had the foresight to understand that the cabin-boy 
of to-day will be the master of to-morrow, and that 
a child saved to-day meant a man or woman pre- 
pared for the work of the Master after a time. So 
he let no opportunity pass to impress the young 
mind aright. And it must be said that there have 
been very few within the scope of the writer's ac- 
quaintance who have been as successful in this 



168 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

work as W. S. Fletcher. Guileless and open heart- 
ed himself, low-voiced and tender in his speech, and 
with a face lit up with the holy contentment and 
satisfaction of his pure spirit, it was easy for him to 
win the love of the young to himself, and then to 
transfer that love over to the Master whose servant 
and lover he was. His journal is full of references 
to ''picture cards," "lesson papers,'' &c., that were 
left in the hands of the children on board the ships, 
on the streets and in the Bethel Sabbath-school. 
Especially as a ship was about to put to sea he 
would appear on its decks with bundles of papers, 
pictures, books, magazines, for all on board. 
Many a heart was made glad at this thoughtful- 
ness, and one can easily imagine the pleasure and 
profit these contributions brought to cabin and 
forecastle alike during the weary months of the 
long voyages to the ports of the neiher world. 

In the midst of this most interesting work Mr. 
Moody entered upon evangelistic services in Port- 
land. Mr. Fletcher entered most heartily into 
that work, and while he did not neglect his ship 
work nor his general care for the sailors, he found 
time to be present at many of the afternoon and 
neary all of the evening services of the great evan- 



WON FOR GOD. 169 

gelist. He was not only present, he was an active 
worker in the cause, and not a few souls were con- 
verted by his instrumentality during the meetings. 
He records one conversion that occurred during 
the meetings that, on some accounts, was worthy 
to be recorded among the really wonderful tri- 
umphs of divine grace that are sometimes seen in 
the progress of the Christian religion. It was the 
case of a man of national fame as a lawyer and 
a statesman, who had reached the age of probably 
fifty-five years, and whose position and influence 
was second to those of no man on the Pacific 
Coast, Hon. George H. Williams. Mr. Williams 
had been a citizen of Portland for thirty-five years. 
For many years he had been the leading legal au- 
thority in the state, both as a judge upon the 
bench and a practicing attorney in the courts. 
For six years he had been United States Senator 
from Oregon. For four years he had been Attor- 
ney General of the United States in the cabinet of 
General Grant. He was a member of the Joint 
High Commission that settled the Alabama claims. 
He was the author of some of the most important 
and useful of the reconstruction acts under which 
the states lately in rebellion resumed their places in 



170 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER, 

the National Union. He was nominated by Gen- 
eral Grant for Chief Justice of the United States 
after the death of Chief Justice Chase. Intellect- 
ually he was the peer of the great statesmen of that 
day of great men. But up to this time, the latter 
part of December, 1888, he "had never bowed his 
knee in prayer," though he was a man of high 
moral character. 

The reflections of his own mind had been bring- 
ing him nearer and nearer to the faith of the Gos- 
pel, and the unsatisfactory character of mere world- 
ly success had pressed itself more and more upon 
his heart as he had gone higher and higher in pub- 
lic standing and worldly fame. Mr. Moody's meet- 
ings were the occasion of bringing his mental con- 
victions to the crisis of public action. 

On the night of December 21, Mr. Williams 
stood up publicly, before a congregation of not 
less than 3,000 people in the "Tabernacle," and an- 
nounced his convictions in clear and unmistakable 
words. He recited the movements of his mind as 
he was coming to the final conclusion intellectual- 
ly, as well as the character of his action in finding 
his way, from darkness to light and from the power 
of Satan unto God;" and how, at last, that very 



WON FOR GOD. 171 

day, in Mr. Moody's room, when the evangelist 
was opening to his mind the Scriptures and kneel- 
ing with him in prayer, God sent peace into his 
soul, and for the first time in his life he was made 
to understand what it means to have the spirit of 
God bear witness with his spirit that he was a child 
of God. 

The effect of the conversion of Judge Williams 
was wonderful. His great, logical intellect, his 
high personal character, his almost world-wide 
fame, everything in his great history conspired to 
make this the most notable conversion that ever 
occurred on this coast. 

In his plain, straight-forward remarks made on 
this occasion of his public avowal of conversion to 
the faith of Christ, Mr. Williams took occasion to 
say that he had been brought to his present step 
by careful study and long observation, and that it 
was not a sudden impulse or supernatural impres- 
sion that led him to this public action, but a sense 
of duty and of fidelity to his profoundest convic- 
tions. It was a giving up to God worthy of such 
a man; and from that hour the position and action 
of Judge Williams on all questions of Christian ser- 
vice and life has been that of a true and humble fol- 



172 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

lower of the '*meek Nazarene." Mr. Fletcher, who 
was present on the occasion, speaks of it as ''one 
of thrilling interest." 

It is Avell that we close up the record of Mr. 
Fletcher's work for 1889, and give the beginning 
of it for 1890, in the words of his own journal: 

"Dec. 31.— Mr. Moody closed up his mission here with a 
watch night meeting at the tabernacle. It was one of great 
power. The Tabernacle was packed from seven o'clock to 
midnight. The most of the city pastors gave short ad- 
dresses, and Judge Williams gave a most thrilling account 
of his experience. Eternity alone can tell the good that has 
been accomplished by these meetings. I have been greatly 
profited by them. In the inquiry room I have spoken to 
and prayed with seventeen. Some of them were back- 
sliders, some seekers, and some doubters. As the result of 
my speaking and praying with them five have professed to 
be converted, and two reclaimed from back sliding, and my 
own soul has been greatly blest. 

I have written to Dr. Stitt, the secretary of the "Ameri- 
can Seaman's Friend Society," and also visited two ships 
to-day. In looking over my work for the year that has 
just closed, my heart has been made sad at the little that 
has been accomplished in our Bethel work. It has been 
impossible to get the sailors or the longshoremen and their 
families to attend, the Chaplain's ways are so arrogant and 
domineering. Over two years ago we had a good congrega- 
tion in the Bethel, both of sailors and longshoremen and 
their families, and a good supply of faithful workers, but 



WON FOR GOD. 173 

now they are all gone.I do feel thankful to God that my 
way has not been hedged up in my ship work. My Heaven- 
ly Father gives me favor with both officers and men so I 
can do them good. That work has been greatly blest both 
to my own soul and my brethren of the sea, ^nd the bread 
that before had been cast upon the waters has been found 
after many days. To God be all the glory." 

Although Mr. Fletcher's work received the gen- 
eral support of the master's of the ships in which 
he labored, yet occasionally one was found who did 
not enter into his plans. On Sunday, December 
6th, he refers to an incident that illustrates this. 
He says: — 

"I visited one Ship this morning and had a very profitable 
conversation with Captain Vaile on my spiritual work 
among the sailors. He is one of those men that believe 
it is all labor lost to try to do good to sailors. I think that 
I fully convinced him that so far as my own work is con- 
cerned, at least, I had led some of them to Christ and to a 
better life. I then gave him some of mj^ own experience 
when I went to sea and was knocking around myself, and 
how the devil always used to keep to windward of me, 
but when I gave my heart to God then I got windward 
of him, and by the power of the blessed Holy Spirit I was 
able to keep him ever after under my lee. I then went for- 
ward and spoke to the men and boys and spent about an 
half hour with them with much profit to them and to my- 
self. 



174 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

''The way of the wicked is as darkness. They 
know not at what they stumble." This is as true 
in regard to the opinions of wicked men as in re- 
gard to their actions. The things of the Spirit are 
only spiritually discerned. Blinded hearts make 
blinded eyes. Men who themselves have not 
learned to "walk by faith,'' nor realized in what 
mysterious ways God can work and does work in 
saving men, reason but to error on such a theme. 
It is not strange, nor does it necessarily imply any 
unusual perversity, that such opinions are held and 
expressed by such men. One like Mr. Fletcher, 
whose own feet had been taken out of the mire and 
the clay of wickedness, and had been put upon a 
rock, with his goings established in righteousness 
and true holiness, knows that grace is omnipresent 
to save the lowest and most degraded, and so he 
labors on rescuing the lost, lifting up the fallen, 
turning many to righteousness who ''shall shine as 
the stars forever and ever." But for such workers 
our whole humanity would sink to fathomless 
depths of degradation. It is only such that go 
down to the lower stratas of social life, on which 
really all above depends, and raise the whole by 
purifying and elevating the foundations. We can- 



WON FOK GOD. 175 

not be too thankful for them, nor too grateful to 
them. Illustrating this, on the 26th of February 
he makes the record that "I had three of the sailors 
of the ship M. E. Watson to spend the evening at 
our house. Had also Miss NelHe Viggers with us. 
We had some good singing and spent a most pleas- 
ant time, and closed with some refreshments that 
wife got ready for us and a precious season of 
prayer. The boys left for their ship, which lay at 
the Albina dock, very much pleased with their 
visit." 

After such an evening and with the sacred home- 
feeling that it must needs have inspired in their 
hearts, these boys would walk safely for a while 
amidst any temptations. Only those who never 
tried these holy experiments of love on the hearts 
and lives of others doubt their efificacy to save even 
the wayward and the prodig^vl. It is when they are 
out in the cold world of consuming sin, with no 
Christly hand stretched out to their help, and no 
welcoming home-door opening to the cheering fel- 
lowship of home-love that these men fall such easy 
victims to the evils that allure with the false prom- 
ises and counterfeit seeming of that which the 
heart so deeply craves. 



176 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

"There lies at the bottom of each man's heart 
A longing and lore for the good and pure; 
And if but an atom or larger part 
I tell you this shall endure, endure, 
After this world has gone to decay; 
After the universe passes away 

The longer I live and the more I see 

Of the struggle of souls towards the heights above, 
The more this truth comes home to me 

That the universe rests on the shoulders of Love: 
A love so limitless, deep and broad 

That men have renamed it and called it Love. 

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SHIP WORK. 

"Ah! my jolly tar, here you are in port again. God bless 
you. See to your helm and you will see a fairer port by 
and by. Hark! don't you hear the bells of Heaven over 
the sea?" 

—Father Taylor. 

AMONG the important services rendered by 
Mr. Fletcher to the seamen visiting Port- 
land was the procuring the passage of a law by the 
legislature of Oregon to guard them from that sys- 
tem of land-piracy known as ''sailor snatching," or 
the enticing of the sailors from vessels and harbor- 
ing them, and then, in any way possible, making 
merchandise of them for the profit of the pirate. 
Its provisions were stringent, and the penalty of 
its violation was both fine and imprisonment. 
This was a law greatly needed, as many seamen 
fell under the wiles of these most infamous 
wretches, and were led to become faithless to their 



178 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

own honor and to the interests of those in whose 
service they were. While he was laboring for the 
spiritual and social uplift of these men of the sea, 
there was no danger that so observant and 
thoughtful a friend would fail to note the advant- 
age of having a shield of law spread between the 
sailor and his enemy and destroyer. Up to the 
winter of 1888 and 1889 he had been practically 
the prey of these spoilers. Now the despoiler him- 
self was put under bonds to let the sailor alone. 
The results of this enactment were exceedingly 
beneficial, and it w^as obvious that the work of 
spiritual and intellectual culture so earnestly 
sought by Mr. Fletcher and the society whose 
agent he was, could be much more promisingly 
prosecuted than before. This bill, and Mr. Fletch- 
er's agency in procuring its passage, were very 
highly commended by the American Seaman's 
Friend Society, through its general secretary, Rev. 
W. C. Stitt. 

The evangelist, in the crowded congregation, 
amid the exciting accessories of music and song, 
of prayer and appeal, or even the popular preacher 
in the ordinary pulpit of the city, would be likely 
to account the daily and constant plod of Mr. 



SHIP WORK. 179 

Fletcher among the careless sailor-boys aship and 
ashore, dull and profitless work. It was little seen, 
not much heard of, but it is very doubtful if any 
pastor in the city or any evangelist in the churches 
brought, year by year, so many individual souls to 
Christ as did Mr. Fletcher during the years we have 
traced his history. And after all, it is these indi- 
vidual souls that finally make up the aggregate of 
the great power and life of the church of God. A 
single grain of sand cannot shore a sea, but no sea 
can be shored without the single grains of sand. 
A single atom of granite cannot make a great 
mountain, but no great mountain can be lifted to- 
wards the sky without the atom of granite. One 
converted man cannot make a great church, but no 
great church can be made without the converted 
man. The trumpet's blare, the cymbals clang, the 
preacher's rhetoric, the evangelist's appeals, the 
singer's chorus, all and each, are of themselves 
nothing, and they often blare and clang and shout 
into the wind for naught. But when a man like 
Mr. Fletcher sits down beside a sailor-boy and with 
the strong tug of his loving heart draws that sail- 
or-boy's heart to Christ, and invites him with a 
consciousness of his own redeemed manhood, and 



180 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

puts him among God's children and Christ's follow- 
ers, something real is done; a soul is saved from 
death, a new power for good is loosened in the 
w^orld of religious dynamics. 

Over and over this fact appears to us as we read 
the story of his daily work. See: — 

"March 3, 1889. Visited the ship Hornsby Castle, over at 
the Albina clocks, and took a fine lot of reading to both 
officers and men, and also invited them to come to church 
to-morrow. I also visited the bark Gartmore, which leaves 
for Astoria to-morrow morning at five o'clock, and bade 
Mrs. Ilichey, the wife of the captain, good-bye. I also bade 
the boys good-bye. Some of those dear boys have attended 
church and prayer meeting with me at Grace Church 
while here in Portland. I always like to keep the run of 
these dear boys. 

March 31. Sabbath morning I visited one ship and talked 
with the officers and boys, and gave them reading matter 
and invited them to church. After attending to my ship- 
visiting I attended Dr. Dickson's class at 1 A. M. and en- 
joyed a most precious season in prayer and testimony. 
This was mj^ old nine o'clock class in the years gone by. I 
met some of my old classmates that used to meet with me 
then. I used to have conversions in my morning class. O 
how many of these dear sailor boys I used to gather in 
with me in the class on Sunday morning, and persuade 
ihem to give their hearts to Jesus; and I can say, to the 
praise of God, that not a few of them went out of that 
classroom "new creatures in Jesus Christ." Why cannof 



SHIP WORK. 181 

such results continue if we make such efforts to secure 
them? The Lord hasten the day when we shall see them 
again!" 

Yes; five hundred people in the great audience 
room, an eloquent oration in the lofty pulpit, grand 
music in the orchestra; and in an hour the pleas- 
ing entertainment over! Down, or up, in a little 
room, a consecrated leader, bowing with some peni- 
tent hearts at the mercy seat, teaching some in- 
quiring souls the straight way to God, and in an 
hour leading them out into that light that never 
was seen on sea or land, and yet is the Light of 
Life! What a difference. Where is the hiding of 
God's power? In that little room, with that little 
band. 'There is joy in heaven over one sinner 
that repenteth." 

One peculiarity of Mr. Fletcher's work, as indi- 
cated in his daily record, was the promptness with 
which he always attended to it. Scarcely had a 
ship dropped her anchors in the river, or tied up to 
htr dock before he was on her deck. Careful, gen- 
tle, never obtrusive, he was apt at hand to render 
any good service and helpful assistance to officers 
or men. Before the pirates of the shore had 
reached them he had pre-empted their attention, 



182 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

and often won their hearts. He shows how care- 
ful and observant he was in this regard in the fol- 
lowing : — 

May 8. Visited the bark Earl Duoraven this morning, 
which has just arrived at the Albina docks. Had an inter- 
esting talk with officers and men and invited them to our 
meetings at Grace Church while they remained in port. 
There is this peculiarity about sailors: if I can get them 
to attend service on arrival they will attend regularly while 
in port. They are not very particular as to what church 
they attend, but whichever they go to first they will make 
their church home while they remain. I got a good many 
of them to go to Grace Church, although it is so far up 
toAvn, and quite away from their latitude." 

Passing on May 12th, the 29th anniversary of his 
conversion, Mr. Fletcher makes most grateful men- 
tion of it. For nearly a generation he has lived 
and wrought and talked for God and humanity. 
From a careless rover of the seas he had become a 
stable citizen of the ''Land of the free and the home 
of the brave." From a prodigal wasting his sub- 
stance in riotous living he had become the owner 
of a good home and a fair competence of the 
wealth of the world. He had found a home in the 
hearts of a great multitude of people that he had 
led to Christ in the citv where he dwelt. By his 



SHIP WORK. 183 

unwavering fidelity to duty, and his constantly im- 
proving intellectual and spiritual capability, he had 
secured to himself the friendship and trust of the 
good people of all denominations. He had broken 
the alabaster box of precious ointment over so 
many hearts and lives that the perfume of his good 
deeds filled all the world much more literally than 
would be true of the vast majority of Christian 
men. Surely he well might monument with praise 
and song the day on whose decision all this blessed- 
ness and all this success in Hfe turned. Not only 
thus, but it were but natural that he should make 
it a day of new consecration; of a higher uplook 
and a wider outlook for his future life. This he 
did, and moved out into that future life with the 
spirit and mien of a conqueror. He did this, not 
by becoming exalted above the work he had been 
doing, but by consecrating himself more complete- 
ly, if possible, to it. So he says: — 

"Sabbath morning, May 26. Visited the bark Assaye, 
Captain Ritchie. He is a Christian captain. I distributed 
a choice selection of reading matter, both forward and aft, 
and spent a most profitable time with both officers and 
men in trying to persuade them to become sailors for 
Jesus, and not to remain in the Devil's service any longer. 
I find on nearly every ship more or less Christian sailors. 



184 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

especially this last year. Captain Ritchie, who was raised 
a Presbyterian, told me how much he enjoyed the services 
at Taylor Street Church, and that that is to be his church 
while in port. I took him to the city park and from there 
to my home for lunch, and then to visit the new High 
School and other places, which he was greatly delighted 
with." 

Not long after the last date there occurred one 
of those incidents that open to one's view the sad 
vistas of so many lives. Mr. N. L — -. — , a respect- 
ed and quite prominent resident of Salem, Oregon, 
called on Mr. Fletcher to make inquiries concern- 
ing his son, W. L , who had run away from 

home, and the father had heard that he had gone 
to sea on the Otterpool, from Astoria. The boy 
was a good scholar, and the father and family had 
denied themselves of many of even the necessaries 
of life to educate him. He could get sixty dollars 
per month in Salem. Loved and cherished at 
home, educated through the self-denial of his fam- 
ily so that he could be useful and honorable in the 
world, he had fallen into the ruinous ways of im- 
moral youth and men about him, and had cast all 
his own prospects and all his family's trust and 
hope to the winds and gone off, spurning a 
mother's prayers and a father's benedictions. The 



SHIP WORK. 185 

father besought Mr. Fletcher's help to find some 
trace of his lost boy. The ship Otterpool had 
sailed for Londonderry, and ?>Ir. Fletcher could do 
no more than write to the captain at his home port. 
How many changes and chances are against the 
future of all such young men. How few of them 
ever "recover themselves out of the snare of the 
devil." 

On the first day of August ]Mr. Fletcher writes: 

'•Visited the ship Scottish Glens at the Albina docks and 
had a long and profitable talk with Captain Whiteford. 
He is an Irishman and a Roman Catholic. He asked me if 
I did not belong- to the Catholic Church. I told him I was 
brought up in it, and then I told him some of my experi- 
ences as a Methodist. I told him after I left my ship in 
San Francisco how I went to the mines, and through the 
influence of a Cornish miner, who was a Wesleyan local 
preacher, I gave my heart to God and became a Christian 
man. My experience, I trust, did him good. I left him in 
a good humor, and he earnestly invited me to make him 
another visit before he left port. He said that he always 
read nil the magazines and papers that I brought him, and 
was xevy glad to get them. 

"August 15. I have written a long letter to Captain 
^Morris Evans, of the ship Otterpool, to Londonderry, Ire- 
land, in regard to the young man mentioned before. Mr. 

L desires to use my influence with Captain Evans to 

have the young man return home as soon as possible. 



186 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

"September 1st, Sabbath morning. Visited the ship Cam- 
brian Queen. Had a close conversation with Captain 
Thomas, and invited him to Taylor Street Church to hear 
Bishop Bowman preach; also his officers and men. Some 
of them went with me, and more came a little later. The 
Bishop preached a most soul-refreshing sermon from "Bles- 
sed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the un- 
godly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the 
seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the 
Lord and in His law doth he meditate day and night." 
The church was crowded, and hundreds had to be turned 
away for want of room. 

"September 2. Attended the services of the Oregon 
Conference to-day and heard Dr. H. K. Hines give one of 
the most impressive addresses I ever heard on the floor of 
an annual conference, in behalf of a theological school to 
be established in connection with the Willamette Univer- 
sity. The conference closed after a most pleasant session. 
May the blessed Holy Ghost go with all these dear men of 
God and give them great efficiency and power during the 
conference year. 

"September 3. I settled up my bank account and left on 
deposit one thousand dollars at five per cent, per annum. 
I have got to the place now in my financial matters that I 
have been working ahead for for some years. My Heaven- 
ly Father has greatly blessed me in my work and in my 
health, so that I have been able by strict economy to lay 
this amount by, so that, in God's good providence myself 
nor wife should be disabled by sickness we should have this 
to fall back upon, and not be dependent on any one. It is 
all the Lord's, and shall be used as He shall direct." 



SHIP WORK. 187 

This is a statement that has in it more than a 
mere financial exhibit. This yomig, careless sail- 
or, whose entire earnings while he followed the sea 
were absorbed by the usual course of evil habits 
and evil companionship that keep so many by sea 
and land in destitution and almost beggary; this 
miner still following the same improvident course, 
had been lifted by religion out of all these habits 
that so sadly despoiled him, and put upon a career 
of industry and economy, and, not only so, upon 
one of very wide usefulness, and now, just as age 
was beginning to gray his temples had made him 
to possess a fair competency of the good of this 
world. It was, as he so often says, all of God 
through the faithful service he had given his Heav- 
enly Father. It was a vindication of God's prom- 
ise, made of old, but made for all time, ''them that 
honor me I will honor; but they that despise me 
shall be lightly esteemed." 



CHAPTER XV. 

WIDENING WORK. 

"Surpassing grateful for this friendly light, 
I haste to raise it to a flame more bright; 

And lol it groT^"S 
Beneath my fostering care nntil its ray 
Ilhunines far and Avide the treacherous way. 

Nor limit knows." 

—La Tourette. 

nr^ HE autumn of 1889 brought a large increase 
■^ of the merchant fleet to the port of Port- 
land, and consequently added largely to the labors 
and responsibility of iNIr. Fletcher. With the cap- 
tains and crews of the vessels that had been annual 
visitors for years he had formed a pleasant and use- 
ful acquaintance, and that acquaintance had been 
the means of making his character and work well 
known to many whom he had never seen, and they 
were thus prepared to receive him with respect and 
attention on their arrival. It is to be noted, too, 
in the course of his journal that there were many 



WIDENING WORK. 189 

more Christian officers and men of the vessels than 
there had been in former years. Large numbers 
of these had been converted in this port, and main- 
ly under his influence and direction, and to them it 
was a kind of home-coming, and they greeted Port- 
land as their spiritual birth-place, and Mr. Fletcher 
as their spiritual father. The relations between 
himself and his spiritual children grew more and 
more tender and confiding, and his influence over 
them more and more helpful. His ceaseless, un- 
wearied attention to them, the kindly hospitality 
of his home, the soft and tender tones of his voice 
while his e^-es would glisten with the tear of sym- 
pathy and solicitude, drew them near to him, and 
held them with silken cords to his heart. One of 
the most familiar sights on the streets of Portland 
was "Father Fletcher," as he was now beginning 
to be called, in the midst of a company of his '^sail- 
or-lads," conversing with them with animated and 
victorious countenance, guiding them away from 
the traps and pitfalls that were set on every side 
for their unwary feet, and leading them towards the 
safe harbor of the Bethel or the Church. ''Jack'' 
was his love, and helping and saving him was the 
inspiration of his life. 



190 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

During the month of September he visited at 
least two ships a day, conversing with officers and 
men, distributing reading and looking most care- 
fully after their spiritual and temporal interests; 
entertained many of them at his own home, intro- 
duced them to the churches, and thus put a bright 
spot into the life of these boys and men that would 
be an influence for help to them ever thereafter. 
On the 6th of September he writes: — ' 

"I visited five ships aud bad two of the apprentice boys 
of the Cambrian Queen spend the evening with us at onr 
home. On going to their ship my wife gave them a large 
basket of prunes to take on board with them, so that all 
hands might have a good 'blow out' with them. These 
dear boys always like to come and spend an evening with 
us at our home. They receive so little kindness either on 
sea or shore that they greatly appreciate that that we are 
able to extend to them while here. 

"Met Captain Frazier and his wife on shore. They at- 
tend Taylor Street Church when in this port, aud the Cap- 
tain always has services on board his ship at sea. 

"On the 10th I visited four ships, and found that Mr. 
Elliot and Mr. Dodson, first and second oflicers of the 
bark 'Star of Denmark,' and four of the boys went to Tay- 
lor Street Church Sunday night. They are Wesleyan Meth- 
odists belonging to Belfast, Ireland, as does their ship. 

"October 10th. I had two of the bark Nagpore boys, 
three of the bark British Army boys, and Mr. Gunn, the 



WIDENING WORK. 191 

carpenter, to spend the evening with us at our liome. Af- 
ter some time spent in singing and conversation, wife got 
the boys some nice refreshments, v^'hich they greatly en- 
joyed, after which I read a chapter of Scripture and we 
had a season of prayer, and about ten o'clock the boys left 
for their ships, highly pleased with their visit, and promis- 
ing to come again before they sailed for home. I receive 
many letters from the parents of these boys thanking us 
for our kindness to them. It makes us happy to be thus 
remembered by those we have tried to 'serve in the Lord.' 

"October 30, Sabbath. I visited the ship Kooringa and 
had a pix)fitable conversation with the boys and men. I 
had thirteen of them with me at church at one night ser- 
vice. I was greatly put out with our pastor. I had asked 
him several times to remember my 'sailor-boys,' as well 
as my brethren of the sea in his public prayers, but he, 
like thousands of others, seems to think that poor Jack 
may look out for himself. There is no class of men that 
deserves more sympathy and help from the church than 
sailors, and none that are more bold and steadfast in con- 
fessing Jesus than they. Once get 'Jack' converted and he 
will stand right up and show his colors in any port. 

''November 2. We buried to-day James Henderson, aged 
40 years, of London, England. He leaves a wife and two 
children. He was carpenter of the ship Hermione. He 
died while I had hold of his hand talking with him. I 
hope the dear man was saved. 

"October 13. I had a long talk with some of the boys 
and men of the ship 'General Pilton.' which was burned off 
Cape Horn with a cargo of coal on board, bound for the 
west coast. The crew had a very narrow escape, for, just 



192 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

as the fire was breaking tlirougb tlie hatches, the ship 
*Glen McPhersou' hove in sight, and took all hands off. 
When the last hoat left the burning ship she was one sheet 
of flame. The 'Glen McPherson' brought all the officers and 
crew to Portland. There were tAA^enty-two of them on 
board. 

"November 17. Sabbath morning I visited the bark Glen- 
effice, left reading matter and invited the boys to church. 
Visited the hospital in the afternoon, and read for Brother 
Roe the experience of Bishop Foss in his sickness, some 
years ago. I also read tor him the 14th chapter of John 
and had a precious season of prayer with him. We had a 
large turnout of the sailor-boys at the services at Grace 
Church at night. It was a good day for my soul. Praise 
the Lord! 

"November 28, Thanksgiving Day. It has been a very 
happy day to me. I was able to get 2G of my young sailor 
lads to attend the dinner at the Y. M. C. A. rooms. They 
compared very favorably with any other 26 lads that were 
there. They were well behaved and did credit to them- 
selves. 

"Deceml}er 1st. Visited the ship Eskdale, Captain Mur- 
dock. He was here six years ago in the Eskdale. as Avas 
also his second officer, who was then an apprentice in her. 
I had a long talk with the officers and men, and invited 
them to Grace Church for the night service. We had two 
from the 'Clan McPherson,' two from the 'Ben Nevis,' four 
from the 'General Gordon,' and two from the Trown of 
England.' I am thankful to God for the favor He gives me 
with these dear boys. 

"December 4. Visited four ships, and met AA-ith one of 



WIDENING WORK. 193 

the apprentice boys who was here in the bark Archer six 
years ago. He is now second mate of the ship Olemione. 
He is a fine young fellow, and above all he is a lover of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the reason he has forged 
ahead so, and I would not wonder to see him master of 
some fine ship in a short time. 

"December G. Visited 8 ships and bid the boys of the 
ship 'Crown of England' good-bye, as they are going away 
in the morning for England. Myself and wife have enjoyed 
many precious visits from these dear boys during their stay 
in port. One young lad is the son of an Episcopal Bishop 
of Cloj^ne, Ireland. I know well where it is. He told me 
that three years ago he was in Nenagh, within two miles of 
where I was born, and we talked of many places I used to 
see when I was a little barefoot boy before I ran away 
from home to go to sea. How thankful I am to God that 
His kind providence has been over me, and that now, in 
my declining years He has placed me here to look after 
these dear boys and keep them from falling into the hands 
of wicked men while in port. Another one of the boys is 
the son of Rev. Mr. Morris, an Episcopal minister at Mil- 
ford Haven, Pembrokeshire, and I am to write to his fath- 
er about his far away boy." 

In this way Mr. Fletcher closed up the year 
1889. His work among the seamen had never 
been more blest, and he was realizing more and 
more the results of his earlier and more difficult 
labors among them. Much of the seed that he 
had so industriously and prayerfully cast into the 



194 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

hearts of his ''dear lads of the sea," years ago had 
sprung up and grown into a ripened harvest, and he 
was permitted to see it "after many days." The 
increase of the number of Christian officers and 
sailors visiting the port was very gratifying to him, 
and the more especially as he was enabled to con- 
nect so many of them with his own efforts in bring- 
ing them to Christ. Connected with this was the 
completion of an enterprise in which his heart had 
been deeply interested and to which he had contri- 
buted to the amount of several hundred dollars in 
money, namely, the completion and dedication of 
Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, in the city of 
Portland. His record of the services on the oc- 
casion shows how intensely he rejoiced, especially 
under the influence of the sermon of Rev. G. W. 
Izer, D. D., in the evening of the day. No doubt 
a large part of his joy arose from the fact that 
Grace Church, while in their small chapel, had been 
very hospitable to his ''sailor-boys," welcoming 
them most pleasantly to the church services, as 
Avell for the love all the churches bore to "Fathei 
Fletcher," as for the good they could do to sailors 
themselves. This interest always continued, even 
after the societv was housed in its new and beauti- 



WIDENING WORK. 195 

ful house. '7^ck" was always welcome to this 
beautiful church home. Illustrating the results of 
his work in this regard, we quote from his journal 
of February 9, 1890: 

"Sabbath morning I visited the ship Patterdale and spent 
a pleasant hour with Captain Tupham and his oflicers and 
men and boys. The captain and some of his boys came 
with me to Grace Ohnrch, and also Captain Steel and his 
wife and two children, of the bark Lorton, with some of his 
boys; and at night we had Captain Tupham and eight or 
ten from other ships. I praise the blessed Holy Spirit who 
gives me so mnch favor in the eyes of these, my shipmates 
and brethren of the sea. 

February 12th. I got Captain Tupham to come with me 
to prayer meeting at Grace Church, and he enjoyed it very 
much, and gave us a good exhortation. He is a good 
Christian man and holds services every Sabbath on his 
ship at sea, when the weather permits." 

About this time a change was made in the chap- 
laincy of the Seaman's Bethel, Chaplain Gilpin be- 
ing relieved and ordered back to England. His 
personal pecuHarities had greatly retarded the 
Bethel work since his appointment, and, in fact, the 
success of Mr. Fletcher in his ship work and among 
the longshoremen was all that prevented a com- 
plete failure of the w^ork for seamen in the port of 
Portland for all the time that Mr. Gilpin had oc- 



196 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

cupied the post of chaplain. Even Mr. Fletcher's 
work was not nearly as successful as it would have 
been had such a chaplain occupied the Bethel as 
would have secured the confidence of the seamen 
and the respect of the general public. As it was he 
had to overcome the prejudice the men and officers 
felt against the chaplain before he could greatly 
influence them for good. A man of less excellent 
character and less tender and sympathizing nature 
than Mr. Fletcher would have failed utterly where 
he succeeded in accomplishing so much. The 
method and spirit of his work are shown in the fol- 
lowing extracts from his annual report to the Sea- 
man's Bethel Society, rendered in May, 1890: — 

''The 3'ear has been one of much profit, I trust, iu my 
work. Not having any preaching in our old Bethel or on 
shipboard by Chaplain Gilpin, I have been enabled to get 
quite a large number of the officers and apprentice boys to 
attend services in the different churches. The reason so 
fevr sailors from the forecastle are found in our church 
services is their vrant of suitable clothing. They wnll not 
attend the church services iu their shirt sleeves, yet that 
would not hinder them from attending the Bethel, as they 
look upon that as their own chtirch. I have made 574 
visits to the ships and supplied every ship with a choice 
package of reading matter, as well as held conversations 
with many of the officers, sailors and apprentice boys. I 



WIDENING WORK. 197 

have made 67 visits to the hospitals, and attended three 
funerals of seamen. Twenty-seven apprentice hoys and 
some officers attended with me the Thanksgiving dinner 
given by the Y. M. C. A., at their hall. * * * I have had 
four visits from Captains and eleven from officers and 
forty-one from the apprentice boys at mj' home to spend 
social evenings with ns; my wife always providing re- 
freshments for them, and we always ending by reading a 
portion of Scripture and prayer, by which I try to benefit 
the dear boys that come here in ships. I also keep up a 
correspondence with many of the officers and boys, and re- 
ceive many grateful letters from them, which greatly en- 
courage me in my work. I return thanks to the many 
Christian families in Portland for the abundant supply of 
excellent reading matter they have given me for my sea- 
man's work. * * * * By the opening of our new Bethel with 
a new and efficient chaplain, I look forward to the building 
up of a large society in the north end of our city. I am 
thankful to God for the favor He has given me with the 
officers, seamen and apprentice boys while visiting their 
ships." 

This brief summary of the work clone l3y him 
during the year exhibits only that part of the work 
that can be counted in numbers. But the greatest 
good of all his work was in that department that 
cannot be seen nor counted, in the souls saved and 
the lives uplifted by his instrumentality. 

'•This will survive the empire of decay, 
When cold in d\ist his buried heart will lav." 



CHAPTER XVL 

BETHEL WORK REVIVING. 

"Prayer is the tide for which the vessels wait 

Ere they come to Port, and if it be 
The tide is low, then how canst thou expect 

The treasure ship to see?" 

IN the early part of 1891 a new chaplain, Rev. 
Richard Hayes, a Presbyterian minister from 
Fort Wayne, Indiana, arrived to take charge of the 
Bethel work in Portland, in connection w^ith the 
Bethany Mission of that church in the north end 
of the city. This was a matter of great satisfac- 
tion to Mr. Fletcher. For a long time, not only had 
nothing been accomplished in the immediate work 
of the Bethel, but its influence had been detrimen- 
tal to the missionary work of Mr. Fletcher. Mr. 
Hayes had had no experience in seaman's work, 
but he was a man of good abilities, and a sincere 
and devoted Christian, and of a kind and gentle 
spirit, and was well adapted to the work to which 



BETHEL WORK REVIVING. 190 

he had been assigned. Mr. Fletcher entered hear- 
tily into his plans, gave him all the assistance in his 
power in every way, and thus enabled him to reach 
the sailors fore and aft readily and efficiently. He 
made a most excellent impression on the mind of 
Mr. Fletcher as a man, a minister, and as to his 
adaptation to the seaman's work. He says of Mr. 
Hayes: "He makes a fine chaplain, both officers 
and sailors taking kindly to him.'' Indeed, Mr. 
Fletcher, in recording a visit of Chaplain Hayes 
and his wife at his own home, says that ''the chap- 
lain and his wife and daughter, seventeen years of 
age, are well adapted to the Bethel work. I think 
he is the best preacher, and the most spiritual one 
in the city, and the Lord is greatly blessing his 
work at the 'north end.' " 

Within a few weeks after the chaplain's arrival a 
"ten day's meeting was held at the Bethel. At the 
first service, of which there was a large attendance, 
and several arose for prayers. The meeting result- 
ed in a very marked revival, not far from forty be- 
ing converted, and the entire Bethel work being 
greatly strengthened. Mr. Fletcher records the 
conversion of one "fine young Irishman, who was 
educated a Catholic priest." Air. Fletcher's own 



200 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

deliverance from Catholicism disposed him always 
to the most kindly efforts for the deliverance of 
others, and he greatly rejoiced when one was 
brought into the conscious "freedom of the sons of 
God." 

Mr. Fletcher's records of ship visitation during 
the autumn of 1891 show most clearly how very 
deeply the minds and hearts of his beloved "sailor- 
boys" had been affected by his work and that of the 
new chaplain of the Bethel. Some of these records 
should be given: — 

"October 14. We had a most blessed time last night at 
our prayer meeting at the Bethel. All the boys of the 
crew of the ship Silver Stream, and five of them go 
home in her as Christian men, and four others asked 
onr prayers. Visited the bark Cumbrian, Captain Lorton. 
Found him to be a Christian man. We had nine of his 
crew and five of Blythwood's crew at our Bethel service at 
night. 

"November 1st. This has been one of our best Sabbaths 
at the Bethel. We had fine congregations both morning 
and evening. We had three captains and a good many of 
our sailors in attendance. Our chaplain always gives an 
invitation to all who want to seek salvation to manifest it 
by rising to their feet at the close of our services. Four 
young men arose for prayers, and in our after-meeting 
came forward to the altar and three of them gave their 



BETHEL WORK REVIVING. 201 

hearts to Jesus, and the other one I hope is not far from 
the kingdom. 

"Fourth. Visited the four masted ship Principality. Cap 
tain Jones, and met one of my boys that was here two 
years ago in the ship Enersdale, as an apprentice. He is 
now second mate of this fine ship. I am so glad to see so 
many of my dear boys 'forging ahead,' and looking to be- 
come masters. May the Lord bless them," 

The influences of the life and example of Mr. 
Fletcher upon the ambition of these young sailor 
boys, and the constant and affectionate attention 
that he and his wife gave them while in port, assid- 
uously endeavoring to lead them to an earnest 
Christian life, accounts largely for the splendid pro- 
gress so many of them made in their profession. 
Those of them who became Christians at once 
gained a standing with those who employed them, 
and if they had the intelligence for higher service 
they were sure soon to rise to it. A sailor is not 
necessarily able to take command of a ship because 
he is a Christian; but a Christian young sailor is 
far more likely to soon become able to do so than 
one who is not. He is more studious and steady, 
has a sense of duty that the other has not, wins the 
confidence of his employers by his trustworthiness, 
and soon finds himself well up towards the respon- 



202 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

sibility and opportunity of command, while the 
others grope and tug before the mast from year to 
year until all aspiration dies out of the heart, and 
they give up the struggle of life to what they call 
"fate," but which is really only folly. The one 
thing that made the uneducated and careless sailor 
boy, ''Bill Fletcher," the esteemed and honored 
citizen, the earnest and successful "seaman's mis- 
sionary'' for more than forty years in one of the 
great ports of America, made many of these "cab- 
in boys" and "forecastle lads" officers and comman- 
ders of great ships, and that one thing was Relig- 
ion; the love of Christ and the service of God. 

"November 29. This has been another good day in our 
Bethel services. At the night service we had a large con- 
gregation, and at the after-meeting six came to the altar 
for prayers, four of whom were my sailor-boys. Three of 
them gave their hearts to Jesus, and have taken Him as the 
great 'Captain of their Salvation,' for the remainder of 
their voyage of life. I told them that with Christ in the 
vessel they could smile at the storm. 

"January 3, 1892, Sabbath morning. Visited the ship 
Kirkcudbrightshire, Captain Purdy. He has his wife and 
child on board with him. I left them reading and picture 
cards, and invited them to our services, then went forward 
and spoke to the men and had a good time with them, and 
got several of them to go to the services with me. As this 



BETHEL WORK REVIVING. 203 

is the week of praj-er vre will hold services every night. 
We had one of the best congregations to-night that I have 
ever seen at our Bethel. Fully forty of our sailors were 
with us in our after-meeting. Twenty came to the altar 
for prayer, among whom were ten of our sailors. How my 
heart leaped for joy as I howed with them in prayer to 
God, and before the meeting closed to hear from their own 
lips that Jesus had pardoned their sins and they had taken 
Him as their companion and friend for the remainder of 
the voyage of life."' 

This character of work continued steadily day 
after day, week after week, and month after month; 
illustrating- the peculiar tenacity and fixedness of 
the character of Mr. Fletcher. "His heart was 
fixed, trusting in the Lord.'' Whether others were 
faithful or faithless, earnest or negligent, he never 
faltered nor turned back. His heart was ever go- 
ing forth in quest of his oft-mentioned "brethren 
of the sea." and his steps were never so light as 
when he was piloting them to the house of the 
Lord, or guiding them to a resting place in the 
shadow of the sanctuary of God. 

In July, 1892, he was granted, in the kind provi- 
dence of God, an unspeakable satisfaction in meet- 
ing the devoted Christian Avoman, who, thirty-two 
years before, was the instrument of guiding his dark 



204 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

and ignorant soul to the Saviour in the wild moun- 
tains of California, and whom he had not seen for 
nearly thirty years, Mrs. Renny, whose name the 
reader will recollect in the early part of this narra- 
tive. Herself and husband, passing through the 
city, took pains to seek out their old mining friend, 
and for a few hours there was such an interchange 
of heart as does not often come in the lives of wan- 
dering mortals. Old hours were new again; old 
but not forgotten loves were rekindled, old songs 
were sung, and with a newer, sweeter life, both 
went on their way to the final reunion where there 
will be no separation. It will come at last. 

"There union shall be sweet, 
At the dear Redeemer's feet, 
When they meet to part no more, 
Who have loved." 

The closing up of this year in the work of the 
Bethel with which Mr. Fletcher's ship work was so 
closely identified, showed it to have been a year of 
signal prosperity. The annual meeting of the 
Bethel Society occurred in March, and the reports 
of Chaplain Hayes and Missionary Fletcher showed 
that more than 1200 seamen had attended the ser- 
vices, and over 100 sailors had been converted in the 



BETHEL WORK REVIVING. 205 

meetings. The reports throughout were of the 
most encouraging character. Mr. Hayes makes 
special mention of the labors of Mr. Fletcher, 'Svho 
has performed his duties, not of labor, but of love, 
faithfully and well." It had been a very happy 
year to Mr. Fletcher. The change in the chap- 
laincy had brought spirituality and life, where there 
had been formality and death. It was no longer 
necessary for him to try to get his "sailor-lads" 
from the forecastle to the cushioned pew of the 
fine church among a fashionable congregation in 
order to bring them under the influence of a gospel 
that would save. They were far more ready to go 
to their own church, the Bethel, where they felt 
much more at home, and where, during the past 
year, they were sure to have a pure gospel interest- 
ingly and lovingly preached, and where a warm- 
hearted chaplain was as ready to speak the kindly 
word to '7^ck" in his shirt-sleeves as he was to ad- 
dress the ''gentleman" in broadcloth, and where 
such kind-faced saints as "Father and Grandma 
Fletcher" were ever ready to give him the help and 
hope that only true love can give another. At 
these Bethel services he reaped the results of his 
sowing of the seeds on the decks of the ships among 



206 WILLIA:M S. FLETCHER. 

''the sailor-lads/'' and gathered many a sheaf into 
Christ's garner, the seed for whose growth had 
been sown in some kind word spoken, some leaflet 
put in the hand, some smile written on the sailor - 
boy's heart in the forecastle. His work was helped 
now, not hindered, by the spirit and work of the 
chaplain and his family. It was all a joy and de- 
light, and ^Ir. Fletcher's heart was filled with grat- 
itude and his Ufe with praise. 

Sufficient time had now elapsed since Mr. 
Fletcher l^egan his work among the young seamen 
and apprentice boys on the ships visiting Portland 
for him to begin to see the splendid results of that 
work. Some, of whom we have spoken in our ear- 
lier pages as being led by him to the services of the 
church and the Bethel and there yielding their 
young hearts to God, are now reappearing in posi- 
tions of trust and confidence, still steadfast in their 
Christian faith and abounding in the work of the 
Lord. Some reference to some of them, indicating 
the mutual affection existing between them^ may 
profitably be made. Thus he speaks: — 

"August 4tli. I have written a long letter to Hughie 
McLean, one of my sailor boys who is now in San Fran- 
cisco, in his old ship, City of Madras, as her second officer. 



BETHEL AVORK PvEVIVING. 207 

Hnghie is a fine Christian boy of a good family in Eng- 
land. I expect to see him captain of some large ship yet. 
How I love to see these dear boys forging ahead. I have 
seen many of them come here in their ships wicked and 
godless, and after being with us a few weeks go home in 
then' ships Christian boys, I trust, by my humble efforts in 
leading them to Christ while here in port. 

"September 24. Sabbath morning. Visited the ship City 
of York, Captain Jones. He is a new captain. She was here 
on her last voyage and three of our Christian boys are yet 
on her. I was glad to find them still faithful to Jesus as 
their Captain, and they were glad to be at our services 
again. At one night service Mr. Francis Millman, third 
mate of the ship Vandurara. united with us and will take a 
letter from us home. We also had another of the boys of 
the bark Forfarshire converted at our night service. This 
makes five of her boys that have been converted since she 
came to Portland this time. This has been the best voj'- 
age these boys have ever made, and they will never forget 
Portland as their spiritual birthplace." 

During the remainder of the year 1893, about 
three months, ]\Ir. Fletcher was very actively en- 
gaged in visiting ships, distributing reading mat- 
ter among the sailors, inviting officers and men to 
the services at the Bethel, and in every way helping 
forward the ''men of the sea" in the good life. He 
made not less than a hundred visits to ships, and 
records the conversion of a large number of sailor- 



208 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

boys. The year closed most prosperously for the 
Bethel work. The year went out on a Sabbath, 
and Mr. Fletcher makes this record of its closing 
day : — 

"Sabbath morning. Visited the bark Amubree, Captain 
Steel. I had a good visit with the captain. He visited this 
port on his last voyage. He has new officers with him this 
time, and only two of his old boys are with him on board. 
The morning being stormy, we only had a small turnout at 
our service, but at night we had a full house, with a large 
number of our officers and seamen. Our chaplain preached 
a good, strong sermon from Isaiah i, 18: "Come now, and 
let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins 
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they 
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.' At the close at 
least thirty arose for prayers, and eternity alone can re- 
veal the good that was done. The year is closing up well 
with us in our Bethel work. I praise God for the favor He 
has given us with our brethren of the sea." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SOWING AND REAPING. 

"We must be here to work. 

And men who work can only work for men. 

And, not to work in vain, must comprehend 

Humanity, and so, work humanly, 

And raise men's bodies still by raising souls, 

As God did, first" 

— Mrs. Browning. 

'^ I ^ HE whole course of this narrative illustrates 
■^ how clearly Mr. Fletcher comprehended 
the motives and purposes of the average man, and 
how skillfully he was able to appeal to him for his 
good. He worked humanly and yet with a divine 
intent. Always watching for an opportunity to 
do more good, he was never obtrusive in his ap- 
proaches. When on shipboard he never, in the 
slightest degree, interfered with the men when 
they were employed. The officers soon learned 
that not only did his presence not interfere with 
the attention that the sailors were expected to give 



210 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

to their duties, but that his example of precision 
and care was a real benefit to them. ^lany officers 
who paid Httle or no attention personally to his 
teaching soon learned to welcome his coming 
among the sailors because they were the more at- 
tentive and tractable for his presence. This was 
the highest possible testimony to his worth, as, in 
fact, it Avas to the things he taught. His own Hfe. 
through the very reaction of his faith, on himself, 
was rounding constantly into a more complete and 
symmetrical fulness, and all men "took knowledge 
of him that he had been with Jesus." He did not 
depend on his own eloquence of speech, nor on any 
power of personal appeal, nor yet on any worldly 
influence that he could command to dispose men to 
enter a new life, but he tried simply to introduce 
them to Christ, and then trusted to the power of 
the Divine Spirit to make his instrumentality sav- 
ingly effective in their salvation. His success in 
his simple methods was often marvelous, so that he 
was really a divinely accredited evangelist without 
any of the professional evangelist's conceit and pre- 
tense. He wrote his name not so much on the 
pages of the public prints as on the living hearts 
of the men he so earnestly and lovingly sought to 



SOWING AND REAPING. 211 

bring to Christ. He could not but be conscious 
of his influence over the men of the sea, but it did 
not exalt him, though it kindled the deepest grat- 
itude in his heart. As the years wore on, and the 
number of those converted by his instrumentality 
multiplied, his home in Portland became more and 
more a Mecca to sailors, of^cers and masters of 
ships from all over the seas, and in it Mr. Fletcher 
and his wife dispensed to them all a simple, charm- 
ing hospitality, that was always sancitfied by the 
presence and Spirit of Him who stilled the waves 
and hushed the storms of Galhlee, and they looked 
with an ever increasing affection on the man who 
had led them to the peace which His presence im- 
parts. Masters of ships, whom, as wild, wayward 
sailor boys, he had led to Christ, and then watched 
over tenderly while in port, following them with 
letters after they had gone away over the seas filled 
with counsel and encouragement, came back again 
to crown his aging brow with the garlands of their 
gratitude and bless his ever-young heart with their 
benedictions. 

In the report of the work of the Bethel for 1894 
occurs this significant sentence: "The number of 
vessels in port has not been as large this vear as 



212 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

last, but one hundred and five have professed faith 
in Jesus, and trust in Him above for salvation. It 
has not been an unusual thing to see captain and 
officers of the same ship making profession of their 
faith and to hear their voices in prayer as they met 
with us in the house of the God." While we do 
not claim all this as the result of Mr. Fletcher's la- 
bors alone, still for many years he had been the 
moral centre around which this great work had 
gathered, and without him it could not have been. 

Early in the autumn of this year the health of 
Mrs. Fletcher began to fail under the influence of 
advancing years, and she was compelled to spend 
several weeks in the hospital under the care of 
trained nurses and skillful physicians. His care of 
her and attention to all her wants was marked by 
especial tenderness, and, added to the unrelaxed 
calls of his work among his sailor-boys, pressed his 
vigorous body and busy mind to their utmost. 
Yet no duty was neglected and no call of affection 
unheeded. His strength was as his day, and re- 
joicingly he bore his burdens of duty and love on- 
ward by the ever-present help of Him who helpeth 
man. 

Among the many plans for the happiness and im- 



SOWING AND REAPING. 213 

provement of his ''sailor-boys," in which Mr. 
Fletcher took a deep interest was the opening of a 
''Reading Room" in the Mariner's Home. About 
the close of November, 1894, it was completed, 
well furnished with books and periodicals, and 
ready to be dedicated to its intended use. A large 
gathering of the pastors and members of the vari- 
ous churches of the city was in attendance, togeth- 
er with many officers and sailors from the ships in 
port, and with speeches and songs and good cheer 
it was set apart to its beneficent work. This was a 
very pleasant and helpful resort for seamen, taking 
them away from those places for drinking and gam- 
bling which always abound in seaport towns, and 
surrounding them with a refining Christian in- 
fluence and a pure religious life. 

The annual merchant fleet that reached Portland 
this fall was so large, and Mr. Fletcher's visits to 
them so numerous that it is impossible to give 
more than an occasional reference to them. On 
the 27th of January, 1895, he writes: — 

"Visited the stiip Carnarvon Bay. I met her owner, who 
is here on a visit. He is a Welshman, and owns several 
ships, and is here looking after their interests. He is a 
good Christian man, and told me he had just discharged 



214 WILLIAM S. FLETCHEE. 

the captain of this ship for drunkenness, and sent him 
home. He wanted me to look after his boys for him while 
they were in port. At our night service in the Bethel we 
had over sixty officers and seamen present. I gave them a 
fifteen minutes exhortation. The blessed Holy Spirit great- 
ly helped me in urging upon them His service. 

"February 20th. Visited six ships at the Albina docks 
and met some of the boys that were here three years ago. 
Some of them were converted while here then, and they are 
still faithful to Jesus as the Captain of their salvation. 
Out of aU the young men and boys that Iiave been con- 
verted while here in Portland with us, I have not found 
one that has backslidden; all have been faithful, and some 
of them have done good work in the saving of their ship- 
mates on the way home from here. It is a great comfort 
to me to know that my humble labor for them has not been 
in vain. So I thank God and take courage."" 

In this connection it is proper to notice the re- 
port of the Rev. \\\ O. Forbes, who had taken the 
place of the former successful chaplain. Rev. Mr. 
Hayes, in which he speaks very approvingly of the 
work of ^Ir. Fletcher, relating especially to the in- 
fluence of the Reading Rooms which had come to 
be called the Seaman's Institute. He says: — 

"That the work has been appreciated may be seen not 
only from the attendance, but from the numerous letters 
that have been received from seamen after leaving. Here 
are a few of these testimonials: A chief officer says: *! am 
only sorrj' I did not go to the institute sooner. It seems 



SOWING AND REAPING. 215 

now more like leaving home than going home. Be sure 
the next time I come to Portland ihe first place I make for 
will be the mission.' An apprentice writes: 'I have never 
been in a port where the boys have been so well cared for 
as in Portland. You have the best place of the' kind I have 
ever seen in any country.' A second officer says: 'I've been 
in almost every port in the world, and I've never been in a 
place where so much pains is taken with the seamen as 
here, and I'm only sorry they don't appreciate it more. 
A sailor said to me: 'I've been all over the world and in 
many Institutes, but for Jack this is the best place I've 
ever been in. Everybody seems to be treated alike here.' 
And just this morning I received this letter from a chief 
officer: 'The boys all seemed terribly downhearted in leav- 
ing Portland, and I quite believe that the attractiveness in 
the evenings of your admirably conducted Institute has 
much to do with it. * * * * You may not meet with all the 
reward from the sailors you deserve, but when good seed 
is sown there is always some cast on soil that bears good 
fruit; and then, above all, there is Christ's reward.' " 



This was the beautiful culmination of the self- 
denying work that Mr. Fletcher had been doing 
for so many years; much of the time alone, often 
amidst great discouragements, yet going steadily 
on sowing the good seed in the early morning and 
in the late evening, hoping, praying, believing, that 
God would water it from on high, and in His own 
good time let him see the bountiful harvest. Sure- 



216 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

ly the workman was receiving his hire. Mr. 
Fletcher writes, May 7, 1895: — 



"I attended the funeral of William Norman Harzeel, an 
apprentice on the ship Highland Home, a native of Devon- 
shire, England. He was drowned yesterday morning. He 
was a good Christian boy, converted with several other 
boys in our Bethel meetings here two years ago. He was at 
our services last Sabbath, and I had conversed with him 
just before he left the Bethel to go on board his ship. I 
little thought then that it was the last conversation I would 
ever hold with the dear boy. 

"September 1st. Our young people connected with our 
Bethel Avork have organized a 'Floating Society of Chris- 
tian Endeavor,' in connection with our seaman's work. I 
have been trying for some time to get it started, and have 
succeeded at last. I am sure it will be a great blessing to 
the young men and boys of the ships. I look for a most 
blessed work among them this winter. 

"September 3d. Visited the fine four masted ship Drum- 
onur, Captain Withois, just arrived from New Castle, Aus- 
tralia. As I was standing on the dock Mr. Sitford, her first 
officer hailed me. I did not recognize him at first, until 
he jumped ashore and took me by the hand. I asked him 
if I did not call him 'Jock' when he was here, an apprentice, 
some nine years ago on another ship. He said he was the 
same 'Jock.' He was a good Christian boy when I used to 
call him 'Jock,' and he is now first officer of a fine ship, 
and a good Christan man. His captain is a Christian, and 
more than half of his crew are Christians. They have ser- 



SOWING AND REAPING. 'ilT 

vice every Sunday at sea, both fore and aft. There is no 
swearing nor vile talking aboard that ship. 

"October 2d. Visited the bark Glenafton, Captain Beattie. 
He is one of the yonng lads that I used to bring up to 
spend a social evening wuh ns when he was here some 
years ago. He had passed out of my recollection, though 
myself and wife did not pass out of his. He said he had 
never forgot the many little acts of kindness we had shown 
him and the other boys when they were with us in port; 
but what cheered me most was his saying that he had put 
into practice the counsel I had given him, to give his heart 
to God and take Christ as his Captain. I find him to-day 
a fine young Christian captain; one who is respected and 
loved by his officers and crew. I had a precious visit with 
him. Praise the Lord." 



The reader will see that by this time in the life of 
Mr. Fletcher there was much of the ripened fruit of 
the seed he had so long been industriously and 
prayerfully sowing being brought back to him to 
his great satisfaction and enjoyment. Boys had 
grown up to be men since he began his work. The 
frail little apprentices that he and his good wife 
looked after so tenderly, whom they fathered and 
mothered so anxiously while they were in port, and 
from the door of wdiose hearts they hunted away 
the wolf of sin so vigorously and courageously, had 
passed through the necessary grades of service and 



218 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

not a few of them walked the quarterdeck digni- 
fied and able commanders of the finest ships that 
entered the harbor. Others of them had gone out 
from his guiding hand mto the even more honora- 
l)le work of the gospel ministry. Is it any wonder 
that, as Mr. Fletcher passed beyond his three score 
years and began to study, in the Hght of a fulfilled 
hope, the results of his work that his heart grew 
warm, and praises were continually mounting to his 
lips. Surely to have lived so long and lived so 
well, and in that life have wrought so faithfully for 
God and so successfully for humanity, were an oc- 
casion of triumph that comparatively few ever en- 
joy. Then, too, that beautiful ripeness of heart 
that is often manifested in people who are nearing 
the end of the hard, foot-sore journey of life, and 
can already see the open door through which they 
are so soon to pass into the life immortal, was clear- 
ly seen in him. And there was yet another fact 
that threw over all he did and said and was an odor 
and a radiance from the groves and the sunshine of 
the Paradise of God. The wife, who had been to 
him so loving a companion, so steadfast a friend, 
so courageous a helper, so devoted a mother to his 
"dear sailor-boys," was rapidly dropping off the 



SOWING AND REAPING. 219 

mortal and just as rapidly putting on the immortal. 
Thus he was talking and walking in the very lan- 
guage of Canaan, and under the very verdurous 
shades of the groves that margin the river whose 
waters make glad the city of God. On Sabbath 
morning, January the ITth, 1896, she passed gently 
out of his sight, and was at rest with the Lord. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

''GRANDMA FLETCHER." 

She was sent fortli 
To bring that light which never wintry blast 
Blows out, nor rain nor snow extinguishes— 
The light that shines from loving eyes upon 
Eyes that love back, till they can see no more." 

— Landor. 

TT^ROM various notices given in the preceeding 
■^ pages it has been made obvious to the read- 
er that Mr. Fletcher found his most constant and 
sympathizing helper in the great work he wrought 
among the seamen, in his wife; well known by 
nearly every sea-faring man visiting Portland as 
"Grandma Fletcher." This was with them a term 
of endearment and respect. She w^as so true, so 
constant, so tender, so attentive to her sailor-boys 
and so constantly caring for their comfort and safe- 
ty while in port, and prayed so earnestly and lov- 
ingly for them when away, awaiting their return 
with so much soUcitude, and welcoming them back 



GRANDMA FLETCHER. 221 

again to her heart and home with svich motherly 
affection that they could not but bear her image 
with them as they sailed all seas and anchored in all 
ports. It was not that she was young and beau- 
tiful, for she was aged and plain. It was not that 
she was brilliant and fascinating in talents and con- 
versation, for she was simple and childHke. Why 
was it, then, that the thoughts and remembrances 
of that plain, unostentatious woman did more to 
influence and fashion hundreds and thousands of 
lives towards beauty and goodness all over the 
world than almost any of her more favored sister- 
hood in the city where she dwelt? From quarter- 
deck to forecastle she was beloved by all alike. 
Her friendship was cherished while she Avas living, 
and her memory is revered and honored now that 
she is dead. None can tell except that in that frail, 
plain body dwelt an angel soul ; a soul that walked 
so deeply and so constantly in communion with 
God and the good world that it became a vital 
bond of connection between heaven and earth. 
Aching hearts felt the consolation of the land of 
rest and comfort through her mediation. The 
wandering and wayward felt the draw and tug 
of her prayers and counsels at their heart-strings, 



222 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

even Avhen she was far away. The good and 
pure felt the sympathy of a common spirit 
in fehowship with her; while the bad sighed for 
a new life when they saw the beauty and felt 
the fragrant atmosphere of hers breathing over 
them. In her, one inhabitant of heaven walked 
among the sons and daughters of earth, if not in 
silken and jeweled robes, then in "a meek and quiet 
spirit," of greater price in God's eyes' than rubies 
and silver. Never was purer love on earth than 
the love wherewith she was loved by her sailor- 
boys as they sailed away or floated back to port. 

Her church membership was held in Grace 
Methodist Episcopal Church; a church whose 
membership and congregation have exceptional in- 
telHgence and social standing. She held the same 
sweet place in their hearts while she lived, and her 
memory is cherished with the same tenderness now 
that she has departed, as in the minds and hearts 
of her sailor-boys. When it was known that 
"Grandma Fletcher," as she was lovingly called by 
all, had passed out of the back door of the church 
militant and entered the "gate beautiful" of the 
church triumphant, all hearts thrilled with a tender 
sorrow for their "loss," mingled with a sweet joy 



GRANDMA FLETCHER. 223 

for her ''gain;" for surely for her to die was gain. 

Those who were present at her funeral, and they 
were many, will ever remember how ''on the verge 
of heaven" seemed the fair temple where they cel- 
brated her immortal crowning that day., Her pas- 
tor, Rev. Henry Rasmus, D.D., whose lips know so 
well how to weave the witchery of loving and elo- 
quent speech, and whose own heart parented the 
words his lips uttered on the occasion, delivered 
an address that might well have been the funeral 
oration of a Confessor of the church of the purer 
and loftier ages, which may fittingly crown, this 
chapter of tribute to "Grandma Fletcher,'' but 
without which the chapter itself would be without 
a coronet. 

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I 
have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a 
crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge 
shall give me at that day and not unto me only but unto 
all them also that love His appearing," II Timothy, 4th 
chapter, 7th and 8th verses. 

There could not possibly be found a more appropriate 
text than this for the occasion of this morning's sermon. 
It was the exclamation of triumph fitting the close of a no- 
ble Christian life many centuries ago. It has been fitting- 
ly applied to manj^ a Christian life since, and it becomes 
very appropriate at this time, a tribute of respect and af- 



224 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

fection to the venerable friend whom it has pleased God 
to remove from our society and exalt into His own more 
immediate presence. 

After a life of probably more than three score years and 
ten devoted in an eminent degree to the glory of the Sa- 
viour and the temporal and spiritual welfare of her fellow 
creatures, she has gone from the battle to the crowning; 
from the keeping of the faith to where faith is lost in the 
divine wonderland of sight. Though gone, she still speaks 
to us, her friends, her brethren, in an example of Christian 
piety as pure and beautiful and attractive -I think as the 
church militant in these latter days is wont to exhibit; and 
now in contemplation of such a life all beautiful with holi- 
ness and shining more and more unto the perfect day, what 
is there in it to attract, to uplift, to inspire? Much that we 
never would know of unless we pause to look and think 
and learn. 

Who was this plain little woman upon whose memory 
we place this tribute to-day? I shall answer, first of all. 
she was a beautiful specimen of what the religion of the 
Lord Jesus Christ can do for all. Born again in the state 
of Xew York, on the Atlantic coast, perfected in love in Ore- 
gon on the Pacific coast, she stood a living monument of 
the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I might chal- 
lenge you to bring from all the ranks of those who have 
despised the religion of Jesus a single example of one who 
served his generation as faithfully as she served hers. She 
was not great as the world counts greatness. She was 
humble; she belonged to the lowliest of the earth. Her 
name will never be heard outside of a limited few, but I 
think God spoke to His angels saying. "Watch over her for 



GRANDMA FLETCHEK. 225 

I will teacli men through this comparatively obscure life 
that the religion of my son can make the lowliest life glo- 
rious." We can do her memory no greater service than to 
say that only the grace of God can make a character like 
hers. 

You want a religion that gives a perfectly satisfactory 
experience? You want a religion that triumphs over the 
frets and worries of life; you want a divine grace that can 
meet life just as life is and transform it into a temple of 
holiness, a song of peace? Then you can have it in the 
same religion she enjoyed. The transforming, transporting 
religion of Jesus. 

Again, if you Avere to ask me Avho she was, I should an- 
swer, "A contribution from that type of Christianity called 
Methodism." If I have the purpose of God aright in the 
mission of the Methodist Church, it is her privilege to 
develop what? First of all, to take the spiritually lame, 
the halt and the blind and make them leap for joy, and 
after having done that by putting upon them the impress 
of her peculiar doctrine, send them forth a peculiar people 
to spread scriptural holiness over the land. 

I think when this woman of God went up to the gate 
of Heaven there was at that gateAvay a group of that type 
of redeemed ones to greet her. I might name some of 
them: Father Noon, and Northrup and Nelson and More- 
land. This church remembers them when in years past 
they were mighty for God in praj^er and testimony and 
daily life and as you think of them and then of a type of 
Christianity that is recognized only by tne spiritual crutch- 
es it is compelled to use; by its halting and limping, how 
are you impressed by the comparison? Which type moves 



226 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

men towards the cross of Jesus Christ? These rugged, ro- 
bust men of God, or those who are fearful lest they should 
go too far if they should launch out into the deep sea of 
God's grace? Oh, for more lives that are out on the mid- 
sea of God's mercy. Oh. for more of such living examples 
read and known of all men, whose fragrance you can no 
more fence in than you can fence in the perfume of a grove 
of magnolias in full bloom. 

Nor would I pass unnoticed the large sympathies that 
characterized this amiable yet great life. She belonged to 
that class of Christians who loved the world as Jesus loved 
it. Coming down upon its level and meeting its conditions 
in a manner not repelling but inviting; that bends under 
the burdens of others and sends a thrill through the nerves 
of the coming race. In a brief biography prepared by 
Father Fletcher, I find these words concerning her: "Many 
are the young men she started in the better way by plead- 
ing with them on the streets to attend religious services 
and by every means available get them under the influence 
of the gospel." I do not know that any more luminous 
commentary could be given of any life than this: He loved 
the souls of men. Better have that written upon the tomb- 
stone than the most applauding epitaph that wealth or 
social position or anything merely worldly can chisel. 
Kight glorious is it that we are coming out into the horizon 
of such a sympathy. Of infinitely more value is one 
life to whom in a religious way the blossoming orchard is a 
living censer before the throne; to whom the sky is a gal- 
lery and the clouds are pictures done in water colors than 
a hundred whose religious experience is a barren landscape. 
May it please God to baptize this church with the gospel of 



GRANDMA FLETCHER. 227 

holy sympathy which stretches out its hands after the souls 
of men. 

Then I would not fail to remind you of the simplicity of 
her faith. It was the charming simplicity of a little child 
asking for what it had no thought of being denied. To her 
the religion of Jesus was not an intricate system hard to 
be understood and difficult to put into practice, but was the 
simple asking and receiving from the hand of her Heaven- 
ly Father. Is not that the lesson we all need to learn in a 
fuller way than we have yet learned it? When Christ be- 
gan the world's conquest, what kind of a religion did he 
offer to men? The plainest that had ever been formulated 
for humanity. Why did he not go down into Rome where 
there were plenty of great intellects and there get his dis- 
ciples? Why did he, instead of these, take men who were 
as plain as the fishing boats by the Galilean sea? I will 
tell you why. It was because when his words and religion 
were to be delivered to the world he did not wish them put 
into learned sayings and apologetics, but in the plainest 
phraseology so that the humblest could understand them. 
The religion of Christ never clouded the mind of any one. 
It is only man's attempt to enlarge upon it that throws the 
clouds around its plain simple ruggedness. Here is the 
whole plan of salvation in a few sentences: Man lost be- 
cause of sin. Jesus Christ the only Saviour. Simple faith 
in God, simple faith in His Son, simple faith in the Holy 
Ghost; the one triune God, blessed and glorious. No need 
to get lost in that creed. Do you want to know who this 
infinite God is? No need to speculate about it. Ask Him 
and He will demonstrate who He is in a way that all hu- 
man philosophy can never overturn. Are you in the throes 



228 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

of any great difficulty or trouble? Simply ask Him to help 
you out aucl do your best, and He will come as certain as 
God is on the living, eternal throne. 

Suppose we were to exercise that simple faith in the 
Bible instead of a spirit of criticism, what would be the re- 
sult to our individual lives? There is no book in the world 
that demands such simplicity of belief as the scriptures and 
yet nine-tenths of Christian men think it is an enigma, hard 
to unravel and understand. There is only one way to take 
this letter from our Father's hand, written in the light of 
our Father's face. Does it say "He hath loved you with an 
everlasting love? Believe it? Does it say He has a father's 
kiss for the prodigal's return? Believe it and get that kiss 
of welcome as speedily as possible. Does it say He will 
never leave you nor forsake you? Believe it and go right 
forward, though it may be into the face of flashing light- 
ning and the angry mutterings of the storm. Just as certain 
as you begin to question whether His promises are certain 
or not, you have closed those golden lips and their assur- 
ance is hushed to you and they become null and void. 

Do you still ask me who this woman was who went out 
to God last Sabbath morning? I reply, she was a woman 
of much prayer. Prayer was the chalice in which like 
Rachael in olden times, she brought the waters from the 
everlasting well. It was the ladder by which she climbed 
up to gather the grapes hanging over the walls of heaven. 
It was the ship that carried away her wants and came back 
with a return cargo of divine help. This plain little woman 
found what the philosophers failed to discover, the power 
that moves the world. Prayer was the lever, the divine 
promise, the fulcrum and the arm of her faith pressing 



GRANDMA FLETCHER. 229 

down on such a lever, she possessed the medium that can 
move not only the earth but heaven also. This church has 
no doubt lost in this Mother in Israel who for several 
years was confined to her home, one of its strongest pillars. 
Around that pillar was twined the beautiful, the true, the 
love of prayer as ihe acanthus leaf around the Corinthian 
pillar. You may not lack in active, devoted vigorous men 
and women, but if this church has one intercessor left, one 
so mighty with God, one who so loved to talk with Christ 
about blood-bought souls; one such Miriam to hold up the 
hands that are residj to fall; if so, it wlil prove a vital 
church. 

This, the spirit of earnest prayer, some of us need most of 
all. What is the infidelity and moral corruption and world- 
liness of an entire city over against one faded face, wrink- 
led with years, uplifted to God in almost continuous suppli- 
cation? Nothing but a starveling; a retreating foe. No 
wonder that Havelock went on from victory to victory. If 
his army was to march at six o'clock, he would rise at 
four o'clock and spend the two hours upon his knees before 
the throne. You had better not get in the way of a man or 
woman who has been looking into the face of Jesus Christ, 
for they may prove a thunderbolt swung by the arm of the 
Lord omnipotent. 

Then, still further, I cannot avoid the conclusion that the 
latter years of this saint of God have exhibited one of the 
most attractive instances it has been my good fortune to 
notice of a beautiful Christian old age. Her religion was 
so vital and pervading that it seemed always young, al- 
ways instinct with the freshness and joyousness of perpet- 
ual youth, and her religion stamped its impress upon her 



230 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

whole character, and it seemed to refresh her soul with 
living waters and make her body a continuous temple of 
the Holy Ghost. To this established dominion of control- 
ing grace I ascribe it, that Mrs. Fletcher was to the day of 
her death exempted beyond most other aged persons from 
the weaknesses of old age. She had not the slightest spirit 
of captiousness, of complaining or discontent. But with 
all of the saintly love, she was as amiable and meek and 
gentle as an angel's presence. Hers was indeed a peaceful 
and glorious sunset not behind clouds, but dipping into the 
golden sea. 

I do not know through which of the twelve gates of 
heaven she entered when she ascended a week ago, but I 
think it must have been the most glorious of all. And now 
as we stand in the presence of these three score years that 
may seem to us like a little sea, each billow crowned with 
glory and honor, the reflection comes to us that life is in- 
explicable except as a probation. Why does man live? 
Why does he die? Take the answer of the old catechism, 
"to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." What is the true 
theory of life; what with all its trials, sufferings, heart- 
aches? This: a place of probation; the first stage of an 
endless being; the waiting room of eternity, where we 
stay a little while for instruction and discipline, prepara- 
tory to the higher pursuits and enjoyments to which if 
found worthy we are shortly to be promoted. Three score 
years and ten constitute a period long enough for the pur- 
poses of religion. We note as an historical fact that the 
foundations of piety are almost always laid in early life, 
and that very few are converted after 6u or 70 years of 
age. For all practical purposes the probation of the impen- 



GRANDMA FLETCHER. 231 

itent sinner has usually closed before extreme age has rob- 
bed his limbs and his intellect of their vigor. Continue his 
life to the probation of Methuselah and it would be use- 
less. It would be heaping up wrath against the day of 
wrath. If we could see as God sees, how many unwritten 
epitaphs we might read like this: "Ephriam is joined to 
his idols. Let him alone." 

What is the meaning of every church tower from Port- 
land to New York; from London to St. Petersburg; from 
Moscow to RomeV They are God's finger boards forever 
reminding men that just a little farther on the life's proba- 
tion will close and then not an eternal sleep, not an- 
nihilation, not another period of probation, but after 
that, the judgment. In New England they have 
what they call a passing bell, tolled whenever one 
in the village dies. I think I can hear in the ringing 
of every church bell the warning, "Some one gone from the 
family, gone from the church, gone from the last opportuni- 
ty of salvation. Probation ended." With that overmaster- 
ing thought in my mind, I must ask you to-day, have God's 
overtures been accepted? Have you settled it? Do you 
not know that hours once dead can never be resuscitated, 
that upon all the drops of dew that fall on the grave there 
will not be one tear of repentance? Better listen to the 
warning ringing through this old world, ringing for two 
thousand years; ringing for every man, saying, "How shall 
we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Now is the 
day of salvation." And then closely associated with this, 
comes the other reflection that life after all is only a pil- 
grimage. Very frequently when her husband would come 
home from his work among the seamen, he would sit down 



232 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

and talk to her about the glorified ones with whom she had 
been associated in church fellowship in this city. Then her 
face would light up with the smile of anticipated meeting 
and she would say, "Come along, Grandpa; let's go. What 
is the use of waiting?" Life to her, as it is to all of us 
who believe in a coming glory, is only a little pilgrimage. 
Some of us stop here 20 years, some 40, some 50, some 80. 
A few are accommodated in the first-class hotels, more in 
the second, the vast majority in the third-rate resorts, but 
at the end of the journey it will be all the same a resting 
place under the flowers and the clods of the valley. Then 
what is immortal of us, if we have been true to God, moves 
on and up. If you have any idea that the man or woman 
who has fallen asleep in Jesus lies decaying in Riverview 
or Lone Fir cemeteries, I have no share in your belief. 
They have passed on to a more glorious condition. We 
make toilsome journeys to visit beloved relatives and 
friends; we gladly cross stormy seas that we may see 
magnificent or historical structures or renowned cities or 
landscapes or celebrated statutes and paintings, but they 
have taken the easier and shorter passage to heaven, where 
Jesus in His glory sits at the right hand of God, where are 
the glories of immortalized sculpture, worked not in cold 
stone, but in tlie living marble of heaven, where are the 
landscapes that never fade, where is the city whose splen- 
dor outshines the sun. Why, my friends, you cannot un- 
derstand fully the difference between life here and life 
where light is dimless. More difference than between an 
eagle in an iron cage and an eagle pitched from Mt. Hood 
toward the sun. They have gone out to be deathless as 



GRANDMA FLETCHER. 233 

God is deathless. Brothers, are you ready to close earth's 
pilgrimage and go out to such an existence? 

But there comes yet one other reflection. I could not help 
thinking, as I rode down the winding hillside after having 
put her to rest in Riverview Cemetery, what a glorious day 
the resuiTection will be. When the sea shall give up its 
dead; when the earthquake shall split the polished granite 
pillar as well as the plain slab. Those monuments upon 
which perhaps are but two or three words: "Our Child," 
"Our Father," "Our Mother," "Our Loved One." 

There is the one promise more certain than the eternal 
hills: "As they have borne the image of the earthly, so 
shall they also bear the image of the heavenly." They will 
come up again. The faces that were once dear, that are 
in our memories now fairer than any lily of the field, shall 
be ours again. Can you think of anything more beautiful 
than the return of those from whom we have been parted? 
I do not care which way the body may fall if God's plow- 
share shall turn back the soil and give me back my lost 
treasure again. 

The idea of the resurrection gets easier to understand as 
I listen to the scientific appliances whereby the world is 
made a whispering gallery. We shall hear the voices that 
were hushed long ago once more when the eternal morning 
shall break over the hills, when the voice of Jesus shall say, 
"Come up. You have slept long enough," when there shall 
be the flash of rekindled eyes and the joy of the greeting. 
When following the chariot of Christ up the highway of 
the sky, we shall look back at the place where we slept so 
long on the hillside, in the valley under the soughing trees 
and as they disappear forever, from our lips shall go the 



234 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

shout, "O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy 
victory." May God give us all a part in the first resurrec- 
tion. 

It will not be amiss to close this brief notice of 
the life and influence of "Grandma Fletcher" with 
some account of her life before she entered upon 
that special work that made her such a notable 
power for good in Portland. 

Her maiden name was Brown. She was born 
in the city of Buffalo, N. Y., in 1821, and w^as left 
an orphan in her childhood, but was taken into a 
noble Christian household, that of Mr. Bond, who, 
with his wife and three daughters of an exception- 
ally pure and lovely character, were devoted mem- 
bers of the old Niagara Street Methodist Episcopal 
Church. Here her surroundings were of the 
choicest kind. In her fourteenth year she was 
converted and became also a member of the same 
church, entering at once into all the relations and 
opportunities it afforded her for Christian improve- 
ment and work. The Bible was her constant com- 
panion and study, and much of it was there com- 
mitted to memory, and gave tone and substance to 
her thought all through her life. She was much 
loved by the members of Mr. Bond's family, and es- 
pecially by Miss Grace Bond, who became the wife 



GRANDMA FLETCHER. 235 

of Rev. W. P. Stowe, D.D., for many years agent 
of the Western Book Concern of the M. E. Church 
in Cincinnati. In 1861 she removed to California 
and became a member of the First M. E. Church 
of Oakland. In 1870 she removed to Portland, 
Oregon, with Col. Flint and family, and connected 
herself with the First M. E. Church of that city. 
Here she became acquainted with Mr. Fletcher, 
and on the 24th day of May, 1871, they were mar- 
ried by Rev. William Roberts, D. D., then pastor 
of that church. Not long after this she entered 
into the experience of ''perfect love," and its reality 
was testified in all her subsequent life and work. 

In 1874 the ''Woman's Temperance League" 
was organized, Mrs. Fletcher becoming one of its 
first members. In all the work of "The Crusade" 
that followed she was never absent from a meeting, 
and always answered to her name at roll call for 
street work. With six other Christian ladies she 
Avas arrested and put in jail twice for daring to op- 
pose drunkenness and crime with prayer and song 
and Christian entreaty. When, on the occasion of 
her second imprisonment, her husband visited her 
to ascertain if she needed anything for her comfort 
in the prison at night, holding his hand and look- 



236 WILIAM S. FLETCHER. 

ing tenderly up into his face she said: "No; I 
have the presence of Jesus, and that is all I need." 
Her experience in the work of the crusade led 
her into a wider field of Christian work. Every 
Sunday morning she went abroad visiting hotels, 
boarding houses and jails distributing tracts and 
inviting the people to church, and visiting the poor 
and the needy during the week, helping and com- 
forting them in every way possible. -Only God's 
Recording Angel has kept the record of the hearts 
she cheered and homes she gladdened during the 
many years she threaded the streets, the lanes and 
the alleys of Portland, bent on her holy mission. 
Soon becoming known everywhere, she was wel- 
comed, as she truly was, a messenger of good to 
the high and the lowly aUke. Scores were started 
by her on a better life. In all her home was open 
to those for whom she felt such a motherly solicit- 
tude. Sailors from before the mast, officers of 
ships, captains and their wives and families, shared 
and appreciated alike her hospitality, while the 
best Christian homes of the city welcomed her 
coming with delight. She often sought the fel- 
lowship and sympathy of such devoted and cul- 
tured Christian circles as filled the parlors of such 



GRANDMA FLETCHER. 237 

families as the Gills, Northrups, Akins, Connells, 
Dickinsons, Hills, Hayes, Izers, because her own 
heart was reinforced by their counsels and prayers 
for her ceaseless round of duty and toil. Few, in- 
deed, of those whose chances were better than 
hers, and whose opportunities were much wider 
than hers, in the city of Portland ever took more 
steps or did more kindly deeds for the Master and 
His dear ones than "Grandma Fletcher," and now 
that she is gone none are more missed in the 
abodes of want or where aching hearts sigh for 
comfort, than she. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

COMING OF THE END. 

The tide rolls up, the rippling sunny tide, 

The tossing waves throw diamonds to the sun; 

They laugh about the gray old rocks, 

And fill the air with breezy vigor as they run. 

The tide rolls out, the clouds hang dark and chill, 
And sadness creeps along the sea and shore; 

The dripping rocks stand silent and alone, 

Like silent ghosts of days that are no more. 

O life, how sweet thou art when tides flow in! 

When skies are bright and health is in the air, 
The sunny waves run o'er the golden sands, 

And radiant hope laughs gaily at despair. 

Yet sure as life, there comes the ebbing tide, 

When joy and hope flow backward from the shore, 

And dreary wastes, and dull and solemn hours. 
Come in the place of the bright days of yore. 

O weary heart, look upward to that shore. 

Where hope is lost in sight that's never dim! 

There only is assurance, rest, and peace; 
For there forever does the tide flow in. 

—Sir Henry Taylor, in Toilers of the Deep. 



COMING OF THE END. 239 

THOSE who followed the unpretentious story 
of the every-day life of Mr. Fletcher from 
the time we first introduced him to them must have 
been impressed with the difference between the 
man of nearly three score and ten, as he now ap- 
pears, and the young ignorant Irish boy that he 
then was. Then he was a thoughtless waif float- 
ing on a rouo^h and stormy sea. A score of years 
afterwards he was but a beaten and buffeted sailor 
boy, unable to read, given up to ungodliness, with- 
out intellectual or moral aspiration, and having 
no hope in this world or the next. Now he is a 
well-read man, a close and clear student of relig- 
ious truth, a well-informed citizen, a devoted 
member of the church and zealous Christian work- 
er and the friend and associate of the intelligent and 
wealthy people of the city in which he has resided 
so long, and his name is a household word among 
the seamen of every port in Christendom. It is 
not far nor difficult to find the cause of this g^xat 
change. One single fact alone explains it. It was 
his conversion to God, followed by a constant and 
entire consecration to His service, and the conse- 
quent employment of all his powers in doing good 
to men. The writer does not remember a case in 



240 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

a fifty years' ministry where a man made his relig- 
ion more the chief part of himself, and subordin- 
ated every fact and interest of his personal life to 
God's service as the Holy Spirit revealed it unto 
him, than did William S. Fletcher. It is in this 
that his life is a worthy model, and it is in this that 
he will yet speak long after 'Sve shall see his face 
no more." It is, therefore, with a feeling that the 
tracing out and recording of the facts and incidents 
of this life of singular devotion has been a means 
of personal grace, and with a conviction that the 
record will be a like means of grace to those who 
read it, that the writer comes to the concluding 
chapter of this volume. 

In the middle of the year 1897 Mr. Fletcher re- 
cords the final conclusion of his mind in regard to 
the publication of this memoir while he was yet 
alive. He had expected that it would be pubHshed 
after his departure, but his best friends desired that 
he himself might see it while living, and have the 
pleasure of using it personally for the benefit of 
his "brothers of the sea,'' as he concluded his work 
among them in his last and ripest days. This de- 
cision made, and all needful arrangements for its 
early completion perfected, he decided to fulfill a 



COMING OF THE END. 241 

long felt desire to revisit some of the scenes of his 
early life on the Pacific coast, and especially San 
Francisco, with which he was so familiar when it 
was but a straggling hamlet of tents and dingy 
wooden buildings among the sand hills that begirt 
San Francisco Bay. It was the middle of 1897 
when he was ready to take his departure on this 
long-desired trip, and, in his journal for June 26th, 
he begins the record of this, a brief pause from the 
constant toil and care of ship and hospital visita- 
tion, and from those other constant demands upon 
his waning strength that clamor at the door of the 
heart of all those who are ready to respond to hu- 
man want by Christ-like help. He says: — 

"I leave to-night on the steamer Columbia for San Fran- 
cisco for a four week's cruise, and I pray that the Lord 
will keep my little home and all that belongs to me in my 
absence, and if it is His will that I may be returned again 
that I may be better prepared for my work in behalf of 
my brethren of the sea." 

Thus hrst in his mind always was his relations to 
the men for whom he had spent so many years of 
tender care and earnest prayers. On his arrival in 
San Francisco he went directly to the "Sailor's 
Home," choosing that as his residence while in the 



242 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

city that he might be the nearer those for whom he 
felt such earnest soHcitude. He found great 
numbers of seamen at the "Home" under the su- 
perintendency of Captain Staples, and the ''Sea- 
man's Institute" conducted by Mr. Fell, the resort 
of large numbers of sailors, and speaks approving- 
ly of the influence of them both over the men of the 
sea. We will let him tell in his own language how 
he spent his first Sabbath in San Francisco: — 

"Sabbath morning, June 20. I attended the morning class 
at the Central M. E. Church. Had a good class, which I 
greatlj'^ enjoyed. Heard Dr. Dillie preach a good sermon, 
but before its close we had quite a shock of earthquake 
which caused a big scare in the congregation, and knocked 
the remainder of the sermon out of the doctor. At night 
I attended the services at the Mariner's Church, where we 
had a good sermon by Chaplain Rowell, followed by an af- 
ter meeting, at which three of the seamen were converted, 
which brought joy and gladness to their hearts as well as 
to my own. So ended my first Sabbath in San Francisco. 

As this is Jubilee week, there are a large number of sail- 
ors ashore from the ships on leave. I meet many who had 
been to Portland on other voyages. As soon as I was rec- 
ognized by them I was introduced to their shipmates as 
"Mr. Fletcher, from Portland, who always looks out for 
us boys." It seems like home to be among them." 

The "seed cast upon the waters" is being gather- 



COMING OF THE END. 243 

ed now in the gratitude of those to whom he had 
been the instrument, in the hand of God, of bring- 
ing- good in other days. So it is ever. "He that 
goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, 
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing 
his sheaves with him." Sometimes, it is true, the 
time seems to be long, and the harvest may even be 
left for others to gather. Mr. Fletcher found 
David Jones, a sailor who had often been in Port- 
land, and for whom he had labored most earnestly 
in the past, but he found him, as he writes: — 

"The same old David, still in his sins. I talked to him 
faithfully, and he promised to come to see me and have a 
talk with me in my room at the Home, which he did. I 
spent three hours with him. I dealt with him faithfully. 
I read portions of Scriptures for him, and got him upon 
his knees while I prayed for him. I wanted him then and 
there to make a clean breast of his sins to God, and take 
Jesus as his Captain and Saviour. He was greatly broken 
up, but he would not yield to the blessed stirrings of the 
Spirit. It was then about half past eleven o clock, and he 
had to leave to catch the last boat to Oakland. He prom- 
ised me that he would read his Bible and do better." 

This incident shows the intense earnestness and 
sincere faithfulness of the work of Mr. Fletcher 
with his ''sailor-boys." With tears in his eyes. 



244 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

with tenderness in his voice, yet with a faithfulness 
to truth that is worthy of all praise, he would set 
before them the "error of their ways" and then, 
kneeling with them, put their case before God. 
His prayers were trustful, confidential talks with 
God. They two w^ere acquainted. They were 
friends, as God and Abraham were friends. They 
walked and talked together and trusted each other 
with a perfect trust. 

One of the most refreshing visits made by Mr. 
Fletcher in San Francisco was with the family of 
Dr. John Dillon, the son of Rev. Dr. Isaac Dillon, 
one of his intimate friends and helpers for many 
years in the city of Portland. He speaks of it with 
most intense satisfaction, and the more especially 
as he found Dr. Dillon, whom he had known inti- 
mately in his boyhood in Portland, a most worthy 
Christian man. 

The weeks of his stay in San Francisco passed 
very rapidly and pleasantly. He did not fail to 
improve all opportunities for good doing, and es- 
pecially among the sailors wherever he found them. 
On the evening of the 4th day of July he attended 
the services at the Seaman's Institute. He makes 
the following record concerning the services. 



COMING OF THE END. 245 

which, as it incidentally reveals his own high sense 
of religious obligations, as well as indicates his firm 
conviction of the nature of the life a seaman's 
chaplain should live, we copy: 

"I attended the night service at the Seaman's Institute, 
as I wanted to see how the Chaplain conducts his work. 
There was quite a large number of the sailor lads, besides 
several ladies present. I thought it strange to see Mr. F. 
through the week playing billiards and smoking and car- 
rying on with the boys, and then to see him don his sur- 
plice on Sunday night and read prayers to them. I thought 
if this was the way he attempted to win the boys to Jesus 
he had greatly mistaken his calling. He might conduct 
in this way until doomsday and never win over one boy 
to Christ." 

With a most genial disposition Mr. Fletcher 
could brook no such trifling spirit in one who 
sought to ''negotiate 'twixt God and man as God's 
ambassador," and he never failed in one way or an- 
other to put the seal of his disapprobation upon it. 
Besides, he rightly judged that a Christianity that 
draws no line of distinction between the practices 
and pastimes of the Christian and worldly man is a 
Christianity in word only, and not in deed and in 
truth. No one is quicker than the men that sail 



246 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

before the mast to detect the counterfeit present- 
ment of a Christian Hfe, and no one turns away 
from it with a deeper disgust. But the real Chris- 
tian life wins and holds their confidence, and he 
who Hves it commands their respect and honor. 
Thus it is always and everywhere. 

The time he had assigned himself for his visit to 
San Francisco having expired on the 12th day of 
July, he took passage on the steamer Columbia for 
Portland. On his departure he says: — 

"Forty-seyen years ago I arrived in what is now San Fran- 
cisco. Tlien there was no city here. I was then a sinful, 
wicked young sailor. When I witness the great changes 
that have taken place in the city since then, I feel that 
none of them have been so great as that which has taken 
place in my poor heart. Glory be to God! Then careless 
and wicked, now a child of God, full of faith and of the 
Holy Ghost. I cannot find words to express my great love 
to my Heavenly Father, to Jesus Christ, my Saviour, and 
to the Holy Ghost, my Sanctifier, for their great love to 
me." 

Surely Mr. Fletcher was right. No material 
change can in any wise equal that which transpires 
in the soul and life of one ''born of a new celestial 
birth," "by the power of the word of God which 
liveth and abideth forever." 



COMING OF THE END. 247 

On reaching Portland Mr. Fletcher resumed his 
work of ship visitation, with the same fidelity and 
tenderness that had always characterized it. Still 
he earnestly sought a new spiritual endowment for 
the work before him. He set apart the hour be- 
tween six and seven every morning for a special 
reading of the Scriptures, meditation and prayer 
that he might be filled with an enlarged faith and 
increased power in his work. As the autumn came 
on the largest fleet of merchantmen that had ever 
visited Portland arrived, and it tasked Mr. Fletcher 
to the utmost to meet the demands upon his time 
and means in caring for the spiritual and temporal 
good of his dear "lads of the sea." The ships were 
all visited, and not one sailor escaped the attention 
and advice of this lover of his kind. On the last 
day of November, 1897, he writes: — 

"I have put on board of nineteen ships this month 1273 
pieces of reading matter, 206 magazines, 189 picture cards 
with Scripture texts on them, with a large number of 
tracts. There has been the largest fleet of ships and steam- 
ers in port this season that I have ever seen here, and I 
look for at last 150 more of them before the season closes." 

Early in January, 1898, Mr. D. W. Potter and 
Mr. E. F. Miller, of Chicago, entered on a season 



248 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

of evangelistic work in Grace Church, in Portland. 
Their coming was hailed with deHght by Mr. 
Fletcher, and he entered into the work they inau- 
gurated with great faith and fervor. He records 
his impressions of the work as follows: — 

"I have not seen such a revival in Portland for many 
years. It has been a great blessing to Grace Church, and 
will result, I think, in fifty accessions to the church. The 
meetings were made a great blessing to - myself. The 
blessed Holy Spirit gave me great liberty in getting a large 
number to the altar. He used me particularly in that part 
of the work. I had the unspeakable pleasure of seeing 
seven of my sailor boys give their hearts to God. I had set 
apart about three weeks before the commencement of the 
meeting from five to seven o'clock every morning for read- 
ing and prayer for the endowment of power for my work, 
and I must say to the glory of God that the Holy Spirit did 
greatly bless me in my work during the meeting. I also 
had a great deal of ship visiting to do during the time of 
the meeting, and I trust very many of the men of the sea 
were greatly benefitted. 

"January 19. I attended the meeting at the Third Pres- 
byterian Church, where all the afternoon meetings were 
held. While we were singing as the congregation were com- 
ing in, to our great surprise Amanda Smith walked into 
the church. As soon as Mr. Potter got his eyes upon her 
he cried out: "Why, here is Amanda Smith!" I jumped to 
my feet, and sure enough my eyes had seen Amanda 
Smith. I had read her book twice over, and read much 



COMING OF THE END. 249 

about her, but never did I tliiuk tiiai I should have the 
unspeakable happiness of meeting her In the flesh. O ho\Y 
my heart was thrilled Avhen I heard her sing and pray and 
speak for the blessed Jesus under the power and presence 
of the blessed Holy Spirit, as he was manifested in the 
words of her testimony. Praise His holy name, such a 
meeting was never witnessed before in East Portland. 
The result so far of the meeting on the East Side has been 
most gratifying from the large numbers that have been 
converted at the altar. 

"February 5, 1898. Visited the bark Nithsdale. Captain 
Steven. I was glad to meet with him and his first officer. 
He was here fourteen years ago. as well as on his last voy- 
age. He is a Christian captain and attends Grace Church 
when in port, I gave him, and also his boys and men, a 
fine lot of reading to take to sea with them. I have put on 
board the ships for the month of January 797 papers, 150 
magazines, 120 cards, G2 calendars, 7 comfort-bags, 13 new 
Testaments, and quite a number of tracts. It has been a 
busy month with me in my ship and Bethel work. It ap- 
pears to me the older I get the more I have to do. but the 
Blessed Lord gives me strength according to my duty. 
Praise His name." 

Tims, as the early months of the present year 
passed by, Mr. Fletcher, in the ripened fullness of 
grace, contintied his loved and consecrated toil. 
Confined to his home for some weeks by an acci- 
dent, he was greatly cheered by the constant atten- 
tions of the dear Christian people whom he loved 



250 WILLIAM S. FLETCHER. 

SO tenderly, and who reciprocated all his love, and 
especially by a very fraternal communication from 
his old comrade and friend in his Bethel and ship 
work in Portland, Rev. R. S. Stubbs. In his re- 
sponse to Mr. Stubbs he says: — 

"I have been in dry dock for the last few weeks. I have 
had a good opportunity to work up my latitude and longi- 
tude, and find out my bearings. My dear chaplain, I can 
say with you, by taking good heed to my chart and sailing 
orders I have no fear of making shipwreck of faith, for I 
don't intend to have any dead reckoning to work up at 
the end of life's voyage, for I want an 'abundant entrance' 
and to be safely moored with our loved ones at last. Praise 
the Lord." 

Thus for so many years we have traced the 
course of the life of this true saint of God from its 
unpropitious beginnings in his low-roofed Irish 
home through the reckless and untaught career of 
a man "before the mast;" through the struggles 
and adventures of a miner; in the church, in 
plain and earnest Christian toil, until we find him, 
as his years touch three score and ten, an honored 
Man, a trusted Friend, a consecrated Christian, 
Avaiting only the good call of God to his final glori- 
fication. Not more fittingly did Paul say of him- 



COMING OF THE END. 251 

^ self, as he neared the end of his earthly career, than 
Mr. Fletcher can say as he nears the same goal : — 

"I have fought a good tight; 
I have finished my course; 
I have kept the faith." 



FINIS. 






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